A Little Bit Heartbreaking

So it’s Sunday, June 23, I think, and I’m sitting in my sauna — I mean, my tent. It's a little after 8 o'clock, and I’m in the car camping area of Caledonia State Park, in space number 60. I definitely didn't expect to wind up here tonight. I woke up this morning at the Days Inn in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and it was lovely to be able to sleep in air conditioning and have a nice dinner out. The temperatures today weren't supposed to be as hot as they were yesterday, and fortunately, that turned out to be the case. I definitely made a little bit better time than I did yesterday. It seems like when the temperature is warm, it puts kind of a governor on me and sort of keeps me slow, which is probably a good thing.

We had some cloud cover and a little bit of a breeze and a few degrees of reprieve on the temperature. And to top it all off, the terrain also wasn't as aggressive as it was yesterday. So, all in all, that was an improvement. I had a little breakfast at the Days Inn, which wasn’t a great spread, but I had oatmeal and some nice toast and coffee and juice and all the usual hotel breakfast buffet stuff. And the same nice lady who took me and another thru-hiker from Pen Mar Park to the Days Inn last night brought us back to the park by about 7:45 this morning. I appreciated the ride, of course, but the best part was getting to hang with her dog Nero.

My hiking plan for the day was to do 15 miles and stay at an AT shelter tonight. One of the things you’ve really got to keep an eye on in Pennsylvania is access to water, so when I hit the trail this morning, I was pretty weighed down with water. I knew I’d be sweating quite profusely, and I didn't want to have to restrict myself or ration what I’d brought too much. So, instead of carrying about 1.7 liters of water, as I usually do, I try to carry about 2.7 now. I actually might need to bump that up even more. Water scarcity supposedly gets a little bit worse as I move further into Pennsylvania.

As I believe I mentioned yesterday, Pen Mar Park is close to the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and shortly after you leave the park, you cross the Mason-Dixon line. I stopped to sign the logbook there and took some time going through it, looking for the names of some people whose photos I hadn’t seen in the album at the ATC. Ultimately, though, I wasn't able to find anyone I was looking for, which makes me think they must have gotten off the trail by now. So that's unfortunate.

The first five miles of the day went pretty smoothly, and I came up to a shelter that had a water source, so I stopped to load up and chug some water and all that good stuff. It was just me there, hanging out with apparently every insect in the entire state of Pennsylvania. I got bit by some weird orange fly a few times, and man, it was really painful. Eventually, I got a picture of it. I'm not sure what it is, but if you see one, do your best to avoid it, because its bite really hurts.

Eventually, I got myself moving again, and in about 2.5 miles, I got to a really nice little spot called Old Forge Park. That was about 7.5 miles into the day. It wasn't on the list of water sources on the Far Out app, but it was actually a great one. There’s a little faucet there. I actually didn't need to load up on water, but I was hot, and it was a good opportunity to just drink as much as I could on the spot and reload that way.

After Old Forge Park, I hit the biggest climb of the day, and then I came to a pretty funny campsite. Rather than just the one shelter, it actually has two. One is designated as the “snoring” shelter, and the other is the “non-snoring” shelter. I've never seen that before, but I thought that was pretty clever.

I had a decent climb after that. Fortunately, the cloud cover and a little bit of a breeze kept temperatures... I wouldn't say reasonable, but at least not deadly for people like me. And then, at about 11 miles, I came to a road crossing, where a really nice guy named Mike was doing some Trail Magic. I talked to Mike for a little bit, and he gave me a Coke, which I was very happy to have.

I only had about four miles left in the day, then, but I realized that I was doing pretty well on time, so I decided to see what my other options might be. The Far Out app showed a road crossing coming up at Route 30 and indicated that it was the best access point to the town of Fayetteville, Pennsylvania. And there’s this place called the South Mountain Hotel, which actually isn’t a hotel — I guess maybe it was one at some point  — but now it's just kind of a dive bar that serves food, and for five dollars, hikers can camp in their yard. There's also an outdoor shower.

So I called the South Mountain Hotel to make sure they were still accepting hikers, and thankfully, they were. I asked them how far they were from the trail, and they said 1.1 miles, and I was like, Oh, great! That meant I only needed to go a little ways past the shelter I’d originally been planning on staying at, get to the next road crossing, and then hike another 1.1 miles to get to the hotel. It wasn’t exactly a full hostel or anything, but I could rinse off, get out of the heat for the rest of the day, and have a burger and a couple of cheap beers. I was pretty excited about that.

So I hiked a total of 18 miles, rather than 15, and got down to Route 30. I pulled up Google Maps to see which way I needed to go, and Google Maps said that I was 5 miles away from the hotel, not 1.1, which was confusing. So I looked at my other map and then went back and read through some of the comments on Far Out, and apparently, the actual closest road crossing to the South Mountain Hotel was back where I had gotten Trail Magic! Now I was further away, rather than closer.

So, that was more than a little bit heartbreaking. The entire time I’d been hiking since I left Trail Magic and made the decision to go to the South Mountain Hotel, I’d been imagining how great a beer would taste when I walked into their air-conditioned bar and ordered one. So, expectations were high. But I wasn’t going to backtrack 5 miles to get there at that point. I don't really know what to tell Far Out, but they shouldn't list South Mountain Hotel as being at the Route 30 junction they say it is. They need to list it as being at the earlier road junction.

Things happen, I guess. But the skies were starting to darken a little bit, and it began to sprinkle, so I was worried about a storm moving in. So, once I got over the disappointment — or at least accepted it, I guess — I walked a little bit further on the trail and wound up at New Caledonia State Park.

Interestingly, I started off at Pen Mar Park, I had a nice break at Old Forge Park, and now I’m at New Caledonia State Park. This is a very large park, with a pool and a huge car camping area, and at first, I had no clue how to figure out how to rent a spot. I checked the park website, and it said the headquarters were closed for the night, but I just didn’t have it in me to keep hiking on to the next campsite. So I started trying to locate the after-hours kiosk, and as I was doing that, it started raining.

But I was eventually able to decipher the map and figured out how to pick a tent site and all that fun stuff. I paid $33.50, which gives me my own spot, a picnic table, and access to a bathroom. Unfortunately, because these places are designed for car camping, I had to set my tent up literally in a parking spot. But at least it’s nice and level, and I purposely chose a spot next to a really nice, clean bathroom, so that’s a plus. I have to wonder, though, whether I might have been better off just getting back on the AT and going to the next campsite, because I probably walked another two miles to get to this specific site.

Right now, I’d shoot someone for a cold beer. S. suggested I try to hit up some of the people car camping around me to see if anyone had one to spare. Park regulations prohibit alcohol, but I'm sure no one follows that. I’m tempted to try, but I probably won’t.

Anyway, life goes on. And now, I'm in my tent, watching the weather radar closely, because we’re under a severe storm warning for the area. It looks like it's further west so it might not get here for a little bit. I won’t actually be too upset if it comes, because it’ll bring some much needed heat relief. So we'll see what happens. Tomorrow, I’ll be in search of a cold beer. That’ll be my mission, and we’ll see if I can fulfill it.