Breakfast and coffee was the first order of business after waking up on the stranger’s lawn. We packed up our tents, stumbled out onto the street and found a little bagel shop that overlooked the river. Eating a ton of food first thing in the morning had never been a postive thing for my insides. So I knew that I should wait around for a little while after I finished my breakfast, make a water closet visit and then resume my hike. Ten minutes or so after eating, I took advantage of interior bathroom fixtures and felt like a civilized human, if only for a few minutes.
One of the many fields the trail went through in Southern Pennsylvania.
With a bagel in my belly and my other business settled, Seth, Freight Train and I walked down the street and followed the white blazes back into the woods. The first twelve miles of the day was almost completely flat. The elevation profile in the trail guide often looked like an irregular heartbeat, but that day’s hike looked like a code blue. I was excited about not having any pointless, viewless climbs and being able to smash out some serious miles. One thing that I hadn’t considered, was the fact that flat hiking, was easy but also extremely boring. We hiked along the edge of a field, through mud and even right through the middle of some huge fields. There were shady thickets, packed with poison ivy and then even more fields, which I was sure were home to millions of blood sucking ticks. After the flat section, there was a thousand foot climb to The Darlington Shelter and the “Taj Mahal Privy.” The name was funny and it was a huge structure for a privy. The downside was the fact that since it was a landmark, many people stopped and used it. The horrifying stench took away from the majesty of it all.
The rest of the day was a blur of power lines, fields, patches of scraggly woods and piles of rocks. Late in the day, after a particularly rocky section, the three of us stopped for a break. Looking at our trail guides, we could see that the town of Duncannon was only a few miles further. Since we needed to resupply, and we were all exhausted, it was decided that we would hike to town and take a zero day. “We will winter in Duncannon!” Seth exclaimed a he paraphrased a line from “The Last of the Mohicans.”
The descent into Duncannon was a mixture of steep declines and rocky switchbacks that eventually spat us out next to a guard rail on an empty industrial looking side street. Making our way to the main road, we phoned the famous “Doyle Hotel” in downtown Duncannon. The gruff voice on the other side of the line informed me that they were completely full. The city of Duncannon was depressing. It looked like it had been a bustling little city 30 or 40 years ago, and then something cut the legs out from underneath it. Maybe the factory closed, maybe the mine was shutdown. Either way, it seemed ripe for a Bruce Springsteen, or John Cougar Melancamp song. Just as a wave of melancholy was washing over us, we got a short hitch to the highway and checked into the glorious “Stardust Motel.” It was the typical, random filing cabinet of rooms next to the highway, but it was cheap and clean, so we were happy. Freight Train, Seth and I shared a room. We ordered a pizza and watched some television. It was a relaxing end to a long day on the trail.
Smooth's Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike 