2017 Appalachian Hike

22 pretty easy miles today. I hiked alone until the town of Boiling Springs Pennsylvania. There was a neat plaque marking the original half way point of the Appalachian Trail on Center Point Knob. 

I got to Boiling Springs at 10:00am and went straight to the local cafe for breakfast and coffee. A hiker named Farley joined me. He’s from Cape Cod Massachusetts. We both found a place with an outlet to charge our phones while eating. The cafe probably lost money on me from the amount of coffee I drank. 

After loitering in the cafe for a couple of hours of phone charging, coffee drinking and talking Farley and I decided to order lunch to. I had a French Dip sandwich and coleslaw on the side. While we were eating lunch Maple Syrup, Engineer and Timber showed up. 

They wanted pizza so after finishing my sandwich I went next door to the pizza place and watched them eat and talked. 

So after being in town for four hours curing hiker hunger we all hiked the next 14 miles together to our campsite. This afternoon was flat and mostly open fields. 

We did have to climb a mountain at the end to get to Darlington Shelter. A nice view from partway up. 

We decided to stay in our tents tonight even though the shelter was nice and had room. It’s a beautiful night. Timber packed out his leftover pizza and shared it with us at supper. That was a great dessert after eating my regular meal of rice and chicken. My actual dessert was the flattened and melted Snickers Bar that was in the top of my pack. 

Tomorrow it looks like we have a very rocky section to negotiate. We have 12 miles to get to the town of Duncannon where we’ll be staying in a $25 hostel. My food order from Amazon is waiting there for me.