AT 2005. Part Two.

May 6, 2005

Now I am at the Church of the Mountain hostel in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania preparing to head south for the last of the 140 miles i missed in 2002. I'm using the chuch's computer and the office will close soon, so this one will be short.

I finished hiking with Montreal and Kutsa back in Erwin, Tennessee on April 23. After two sunny days in town, we had two days of increasingly stomy weather. No matter. The woods were beautifully etheral and, as long as I kept walking, I was warm. We walked into town in a cold rain and bailed into a Holiday Inn Express that was also filled with hikers, all of whom were taking refuge from the predicted snow storm. It wasn't much of a storm but it was snow and cold. I rode out on a Greyhound bound for Virginia. It was hard leaving Montreal and Kutsa behind. Their company made for great hiking.

Good friends Peyton and Carol Coyner put me up for a week while I got ready for Pennsylvania. I probably could have prepared more quickly but there were so many diversions: Carol's book club (I read the book about a year ago), a nine mile canoe trip down the Rockfish River, during which Peyton (wielding a chain saw) and I cleard two major obstructions. We also visited an old friend in Richmond for an afternoon and participated in the Nelson County Downriver Race on the Tye River on Saturday. We only flipped once and managed to finish.

Sunday Peyton drove me to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania and dropped me at the trailhead the following morning. Now I am truly alone. The first day's walk was 14 miles across the Cumberland Valley, open farming country and mosly flat. I saw one other person. The following day I met a thru-hiker who had walked from Georgia this year (he left in late February and is moving very fast). My second night's camp was at Hawk Rock overlooking Duncannon, PA which is situated on a bend in the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg. The view was achingly beautiful.

I spent last night at the famed Doyle Hotel, which by any standards would be a flophouse. It's worn, faded and dilapidated but has a good bar (which is what keeps it open) and cheap rooms for hikers. As long as you don't need A/C it's okay. Actually, I needed the heat. Pennsylvania is still cold this first week in May.

Tomorrow, I head south.

Rez Dog