Assuming nothing catastrophic befalls us, tonight will be our last night sleeping in a tent with a broken pole. For the last 4 nights we have made do by using a sapling and duct tape to help hold it aloft, but our new pole system should be waiting for us @ the post office in Palmerton. We are spending the night next to Bake Oven Knob Shelter and closed out our rockiest day of the entire state of PA by a hike up, over, and back down the other side of Bake Oven Knob. We crossed a section known as The Knife’s Edge, and if you take a wrong step either way along the 200 yards or so, you fall down a steep cliff and to an almost certain death! It was a 6th grade boy’s dream vacation! In reality, that 2-3 mile section was our favorite of the day because the rocks we crossed were mostly big enough to simply jump from rock to rock and stay above the small, sharp rocks sticking out of the ground. It was a section that without a backpack would have been a whole lot of fun! However, those few miles were competing against 10 or so others that were nothing short of agony. So, as much fun as they were, the entire day as a whole was really pretty exhausting and painful. Mel has developed another blister on that same left foot and we had to stop a couple times for her to do some surgery. I just now asked her if it felt any better and she said only when she doesn’t have shoes on, which doesn’t work very well for hiking.

We left Eckville this morning around 9:30 and really struggled up the mountain and back onto the rock filled ridge. We had to carry enough water for 12 miles, as the nearest springs were over 1/2 mile from the trail, and the temps were back in the high 80’s with lots of humidity. That humidity did bring a little rain later on though, which was a huge blessing. We stopped for a break @ an overlook called Dan’s Pulpit and met back up with Whisper. A couple hours, and 4.5 miles later, we staggered in to Allentown Hiking Club Shelter. We took our boots off here to give our toes and feet a little chance to rest, and had a snack/lunch. There were some nasty clouds overhead, so we sat around to see what would happen. It mostly blew over and Whisper took off just ahead of us to get into camp a little early. We left around 2 and made quick work of the 4 miles to PA 309. This was the only section of the day that was relatively smooth and we couldn’t have been happier to make a few quick and easy miles. There is a nice B & B @ the highway and just before we reached it, we found some trail magic from Red’s (another thruhiker) mom in the form of pop and fresh strawberries! That helped to soften the blow of finding out the restaurant @ the B & B was open every day but Monday. As a result, we only stopped long enough to fill our water bottles on a spigot out back and grab a quick snack. We had just under 6 miles to go @ this point and it was nearing 4 p.m. The final section contained both Bake Oven Knob and The Knife’s Edge so we were very happy to finally make it off the top of the ridge and down to the shelter. When we arrived, Mel started on dinner and rested her aching feet while I went for water. The nearest spring that wasn’t dry was easily .4 miles one way down the mountain, so I was lucky enough to add at least 3/4 of a mile to my day! However, I did manage to snag some more raspberries on the way back up, so I guess the trip did have a few highlights. We ate dinner (mashed potatoes, gravy, and tuna) and then I had a 2nd dinner that we picked up from a section hiker back @ the 501 Shelter (whole wheat pasta and cheese with crab meat!). Tomorrow we are doing 8 miles into Palmerton and a guy we met a few days back @ Pine Grove Furnace named Greg is picking us up and taking us to do our laundry and dropping us @ a hotel. Mel’s birthday is on Wednesday so we are planning to take a zero and celebrate by not walking on any rocks for the day! That’s all for tonight. God bless and comment if you can, as it really does get lonely out here. Peace and love.

Wild and wonderful day today. We left our campsite around 8:30 and immediately had a steep climb back up to the ridge we’ve been on for the last 2 days. From there we had around 9.5 miles to make it to our first shelter stop and lunch break. The first 5 miles were rocky but tolerable, as the rocks were infrequent enough as to allow for us to step around most of them. There were a few short stretches that were nice and nasty with more of the jagged rocks you couldn’t step around. We stopped for our first break after 3.9 miles and were soon greeted by Catfish, who had started just moments after us. There are several people on the tral who think he and I look alike, and we soon passed 2 south bound sectioners who thought the same thing. Catfish is a great guy and we share similar taste in music, the outdoors, and various other things. He is from Georgia and offered to let me come along the next time he gets drawn for an alligator hunt! He killed a 7 footer a couple years ago. He just recently graduated from North Georgia University and is planning on going to school a little longer to become a science teacher. Anyway, the three of us had a pleasant time walking and talking, and we even sang some of our favorite country tunes and quizzed each other about other ones! We stopped 3 miles or so later for a 300 yard detour to a spring that was barely flowing and had lots of floaties! We managed to avoid most of them and took a nice break after pumping our water. Whisper, who we had caught up with a few miles back, didn’t need any water so she pressed on and we met back with her once we got to Port Clinton. The trail to the water was basically a cobblestone road, but with sharp and pointy rocks instead of smooth and rounded ones. That was a prelude to the next section before the shelter. We also bumped into Retread again, the sweet older man from Alaska that we would love to adopt as a great uncle or something! He came out of the bushes from a side trail with a wild look in his eyes and sweat pouring off of him. He had apparently taken a wrong turn and walked a half mile or so through the woods looking for the spring. We pointed him in the right direction and headed on to the shelter. Once there, we kicked our shoes off and put our feet up for a few precious minutes before we started the final 8 miles to town. It was in and around this time that we had a cool chat with Catfish about faith, church, creation, and a myriad of other things that God brought up in the midst of the conversation. It was nice to talk with someone like-minded and not out to start an argument about religion. We hope to hike with Catfish some more in the future. As we were preparing to leave the shelter, Retread came stumbling in once again and announced his intentions to stay at the shelter for the night. We noticed a bit of rain blowing in and thought we’d stay a while to wait it out while we talked to Retread. He certainly hasn’t been enjoying himself for several weeks and keeps getting weaker and weaker. He started @ 155 lbs and is down to 132 lbs on a frame that is about 5′8″ and medium build. He also said he misses his wife terribly and hasn’t even been able to slow down long enough to study some trees, which was going to be a big part of his journey. Catfish asked him why he was even still out here then and he admitted that was a good question. I am afraid for his health and am hopeful that he decides enough is enough and heads home to see his wife and baby granddaughter. If he stays though, that will mean more time spent enjoying his company, so it is a tough call. Once the rain clouds blew over, we wished him well and headed back out. After about 30 minutes the rain came back and cut loose with a shower synonymous with the kick-off of Noah’s expedition a few thousand years ago! Everything we were wearing got completely soaked through, but is felt so good to get away from the heat for a while that we didn’t even care. After around an hour of that it blew over and left us with cooler but muggier temps. We stopped near a gravel road to dry out a bit and rest for a few minutes. We started walking again around 4 and had our rockiest section thus far in PA to walk through. No biggie though, as the rocks were all dry and firmly in the ground…oh wait, that’s the absolute opposite on both counts! We struggled a great deal through that section but thankfully made it through unscathed and promptly climbed down 1000 ft in .8 miles and made it into Port Clinton. There is a covered pavilion here owned by a local church where hikers are allowed to stay and camp. We found Whisper here, along with about 12-15 other thruhikers. There is also a guy who is somewhat of a trail angel legend named Bag of Tricks who is staying here, making beer runs for people (if you’re into that sort of thing), and just generally being a good ole boy! Mel, Whisper, and I got a ride from him about two miles up the road and across the street from the Cabela’s store to Burger King. We each had a chocolate shake and large fry (I had two of each) and Mel ordered the chicken sandwich while I ordered the new Steakhouse burger. As we were waiting for our ride to come back, we were sitting in the parking lot eating our fries and two employees, a guy and a girl, came walking out of the store arguing loudly. He started cursing at her and getting up in her face in a way that didn’t sit well with me. As such, I yelled that I didn’t care what she had done, you don’t talk to/curse at a woman that way. He turned around and in fairly simple (meaning not more than words with 4 letters) language told me not to get involved in his business, and that he’d be happy to do something about it if I did. He was a little fella, so I certainly wasn’t as fear stricken as he might have liked! Then they quieted down and continued to argue. To make a long story short, I kept watching to make sure she was okay, they parted ways, he came back in while I was ordering my second shake, glared at me, I glared back, and when he stormed out again, I told the manager the whole story, and she promptly went outside and fired him! A beat down of appropriate fashion was avoided, and I managed to still defend the honor of a young lady while managing not to have to spend the night in the Hickville jail for defending said honor and administering said beat down! And there was much rejoicing. We go a ride back to the pavilion, ate our dinner, washed off at a nearby hand pump well, and sat around watching everyone drink themselves silly. It is sad that so many people have to depend of excess amounts of alcohol just to have a good time, or at least think they had a good time when in reality it was actually a very dull evening. Sure, the stories got louder as the cooler got emptier, but I’ve had more fun at a silent auction for baked goods. After we had “partied hard” (sat around passing the liquor bottle on to the next person each time it reached us) and saw some more rain rolling in, we retired to the tent with the broken pole supported by a sappling to enjoy a good night’s sleep and the promise of waking up in the AM without a hangover! A few final notes: 1. We met Bearfoot, who is also doing his hike as a fundraiser. He is hiking for Keep America Beautiful. If you want to know more about why we are doing our hike, check out the Get Involved section on the side of the page. 2. Melissa told me she isn’t going to complain or gripe at all about the rocks for at least the next 80 miles to the border! This will be a tough test for her, as she really hates rocks and they hurt her much more since she is only wearing trail runners now. 3. Even though I said we would be counting the 100 mile sections in reverse now, we did cross the 1200 mile mark today! Praise God for an injury free hike thus far and please continue to keep us in your prayers. Don’t forget, 1200 miles is a perfect time to send a comment to your old friends, Stubbs and Mr. Bones. Be nice to each other out there.

I had a sarcastic rant all worked out in my head for my post this evening, but 3 things have deterred me from writing it down. They are as follows: Ripe black raspberries, pizza delivery, and a shelter in the storm. I shall save my sarcastic remarks and scathing review of this state for a day when the rocks are even sharper and more frequent than today! We woke up to the sound of thunder and a trucker working out the engine brake on his semi up on I-81. The thunder we heard blew over, and we packed up quickly and headed off. Whisper was a few minutes behind and we found out later in the day that she had gotten lost right after we left and hiked almost two miles out of the way. Poor thing, she’s had a rough day and I think is seriously thinking about getting off the trail. She is lonely more than anything, and even though she wouldn’t understand the phrase “third wheel,” I know she is going through the feelings of being one. Keep her in your prayers, as I think God is really working on her. Our first 2 miles took us under the interstate and up a nasty rocky climb to a ridge that we have been on ever since. It was here that we found our first raspberries for the day, and we stopped at almost every bush we came to. All told, we probably ate about a quart of ripe berries and only moved on when the stickers on the bush or the poison ivy enveloping the ground around it prevented us from reaching any more. Needless to say, we killed a lot of time and made slow progress over the jagged rocks to our first shelter of the day, William Penn. It was a nice double decker shelter and we stayed for about 30 minutes while we snacked and pumped some more water. We were 4.1 miles short of 501 Shelter and we made that distance in about an hour and a half. The 501 is one of the few shelters on the entire trail that has a caretaker living next door and has a solar shower, port-a-pot privy, a spigot, and most importantly, a menu for the local pizza place that will deliver! When we arrived, Sunkist, Kyanite, Catfish, and Whisper were already there. The first 3 were enjoying some hot pizza and calzones, and Whisper was waiting to see what we were going to do. While Mel took a shower, I ordered pizza and called Big Agnes about replacing our tent poles. They are sending us new ones in a couple days and the pizza guy told us 30 minutes. Mel and I waked to the road, only about .2 miles away and waited for her medium cheese and my large mushroom and green pepper with extra cheese. We also split a 2 liter of Coke to wash it down. After eating half of my pizza, I went to take my shower and do a little laundry while I was there. Whisper showered next, and after having arrived @ shortly past 1, we were finally ready to go around 4. And then we heard the thunder! A nasty looking storm was blowing in and after about 10 minutes we were watching pouring rain drops bouncing off of the skylight above us (yes, 501 shelter has a skylight that is roughly 10 feet in diameter!). We stayed there and talked with a southbounder named Sailor and were happy to see another hiker come in during the hardest rainfall. We were happy for more company, but also happy that he was wet and we weren’t for once! We didn’t even get his name (if you’re reading this, drop us a comment) but what we did get from him was all of his leftover food that he wasn’t going to use since he was going home a day early! That, plus the pizza for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow, should definitely get us through until Palmerton on Tuesday. We finally left around 6:30 and had 5.6 miles to make it here to Hertlein Campsite. It was our rockiest section yet but we made the whole distance in right around 2 hours and 15 minutes. We got our tent set up just before dark and, after eating some cold pizza and singing some Lynyrd Skynyrd with Catfish, we headed off to bed. The rain cooled things off a bit, but we still have to sleep with our rainfly open to keep it cool enough not to sweat all night. One final note: we now have less than 1000 miles to go and from here on out we will be counting down the 100’s instead of counting up. It just makes us feel better somehow! Sweet dreams.

Check below this post for the blog from yesterday, as it was just posted.

Some days you want to get out of bed, and some days you just wanna lay around. Today was one of the latter, but since we live in a tent and laying around any later than 8ish usually means sweating like crazy, we had to get up and make some miles. It was actually raining when we woke up, so we were able to sleep a little longer and still be reasonably cool. We had told Whisper last night that we were planning to have a date day, where Mel and I hike alone, and so she was was up and gone just before us. We packed up all of our wet gear, which was 80% of everything we had, and had a bagel for breakfast. As Mel was getting ready to shake out the tent before tearing it down, something happened and the pole across the top snapped right in half. Tonight we are using adhesive tape and a nice sappling to keep the thing up! That was basically an indication of what the rest of the day would be like. It wasn’t necessarily hard, as even our 1000 feet climb to start the day was fairly gradual, but it was just one of those days. Mel commented a few times that all she really wanted to do was curl up with me on the couch with a bag of popcorn and watch a Disney movie. So, someone who has a couch and a Disney movie, watch it, eat some popcorn, and think of us. After our climb, we stayed on top of Stony Mt (aptly named) for several miles and got to see our lone highlight of the day. As we were shuffling our way across a rock field I saw something a hundred yards or so down the trail, waddling toward us. As it got closer, we could finally determine that it was a rather fat and healthy looking porcupine, and he had no idea we were there! I took a couple pictures and Mel motioned for me to take a video. As soon as I started recording, he heard my vioice, realized he was not alone and terribly outsized, turned around and waddled expeditiously back down the trail away from us, quills poised and at the ready. We gave chase, but not too closely, and finally he jumped off the trail and did something remarkable and seemingly out of character for a rodent of his size and design. He climbed a tree! Not with his claws either. He literally climbed a small evergreen tree branch by branch, his little front paws working overtime to grab anything they found to hold on to. He made it to the very top and perched precariously on the absolute highest branch he could find. It was all a rather cute spectacle, and aside from the fact that you could never pet one, at least not more than once a month or so, we decided that a porcupine would make a fine looking pet! After a few minutes we decided that he probably hadn’t planned on spending his entire day in a tree and might have had other arrangements. As such, we left him alone and tried again to find some desire to hike. We came up empty handed, but pushed on nonetheless. The first and only shelter of our day was about 11 miles in and we made it there by about 3:30. The sun had come out a few hours before, but aside from that and being accompanied by two A-10 Thunderbolts (or something of similar design) flying loudly over our heads for an hour or so, nothing else particularly noteworthy took place on the way in to the shelter (Rausch Gap). We stopped there for almost an hour to relax, rest our feet, dry out our socks, pump some water, eat a snack or 3 or 4, and just enjoy the few minutes of our date day that weren’t spent hiking. The break was over all too quickly, but we had another 600 or so ft climb right away, and we still had a little over 6 miles yet to hike. They passed rather uneventfully as well, and we soon found ourselves crossing over Swatara Creek on an old iron bridge and meeting up with Whisper just 100 yards or so from I-81. We are camped just below the bridge and only a few yards from the creek. The interstate is loud, but constant enough to hopefully lull us to sleep. I just hope the truckers go easy on their jake brakes, otherwise we’re lible to wake up and thing someone is going crazy on us with a minigun! I tried to call Big Agnes, our tent manufacterer, to see if they would send sme replacement poles, but they were already closed. We are hoping to get ahold of them tomorrow and be able to continue to rig something up each night until we get our new ones. The weather here has been hot and muggy, but nothing like it was a couple weeks ago. The shade of the long green tunnel we had heard so much about has actually served to keep us a little cooler. Now we just hope it doesn’t drive us insane. Oh well, as I said earlier, some days you want to get up and some days you don’t. Hopefully in the morning we’ll be so excited to walk we can’t even wait to get our boots on! One way or another though, we’ve gotta keep walking because tomorrow we’ll have less than 1000 miles to go, and we’ll be one step closer to our dream! God bless.

Strange day today and it is already almost 11. I’ll have to make this one a little brief. We were up and hiking by 7:30 and excitedly going into Duncannon, PA, one of the most famous towns on the trail. In years past it has been described as the “Jewel of the Susquehanna,” but that was certainly in years past! Now it is essentially a bedroom community for nearby Harrisburg, and many of the homes and businesses are showing definite signs of wear and tear. We dropped almost 700 feet down a jagged rock slope as we were heading into town, and were surprised to find some trail magic in the form of Mt Burst, or some other off brand form of an original, Mt. Dew. It was cold, but hopelessly flat so we threw it out @ the first trash can we found. We headed down the main road through town and promptly came to The Doyle, a seedy old hotel and bar where many a thruhiker has stayed. We were not of that select group, as we are partial to establishments that actually wash the sheets between guests, so we took a quick photo and headed across the street to Goodies, a little hole in the wall diner reported to have a great breakfast menu. The report was conclusive and we ordered up 3 blueberry pancakes for me (each one literally as big around as my head), to go along with my coffee and bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Mel has the #5, which included coffee, toast, French toast, eggs and bacon, although she only managed the eggs, French toast, and 1 piece of regular toast. Who knows, maybe we’ve been eating too good! As we were waiting for our food, a salty old guy named Jim walked in with his wife and grandson. We made small talk and didn’t really start talking until we were both done with breakfast and waiting for the waiter to bring us our tickets. Instead of doing this rather easy and brainless task, he was standing @ the counter smoking and wiping his nose. I said it was cheap, not fancy! I asked Jim for directions to the grocery store about a mile away and he offered to take us there himself. We left our packs out front, on Jim’s suggestion (of course we fully trust him, we ate breakfast together!), and jumped into his gold Taurus. We were soon pulling into Menzabaugh’s Grocery and shopping for our resupply. After we finished, we decided to walk back down the road to the center of town. It was a rather perilous journey, fraught with speeding sedans, rumbling trucks, and a huge garbage truck seemingly bent on our demise. Fortunately we pulled through and were walking the 2.5 miles through town and across the Susquehanna River by a little before 11. Once back in the woods, we had a rocky 800 feet climb and about 3 miles to Clarks Ferry Shelter, where we stopped briefly for a snack and to get some more water. The next 3.9 miles were much less enjoyable and full of lots of bouldering around rock falls and jagged ridgelines, side stepping around poison ivy so tall you could get lost in it, and still further pounding on our feet. We did find some wild black raspberries though and that helped take the edge off things! We stopped for a break just past PA 225 and talked with a couple guys there taking a late lunch/smoke break. We also got to see the fattest dog we’ve ever seen, and perhaps that has ever lived. He couldn’t even get himself into the back seat of the Rodeo his owner was driving. It was quite the spectacle seeing her struggle to even reach around his chubby ole body! From there it was a fairly flat and easy 2.9 to Peters Mt Shelter, where we stopped again for a break and contemplated dinner. As we were thinking, Sunkist came walking up from the opposite direction without a pack but with a distraught look in her eyes. When we asked what was wrong, she burst into tears and told us one of their dogs, Allie, had been missing for almost 3 hours. We promised to keep a lookout and as soon as she put a note in the registry, she headed back out. We found out a short time later from a southbounder that Allie had come back and all was right with the world! We cooked dinner, cleaned our dishes, and did what was supposed to be 4.1 but ended up being a little over 6 miles to a nice spring where we are camped with Whisper, Sunkist, Kyanite, and of course their two dogs. So, the map was wrong and we aren’t exactly sure how far we came but 20 sounded the most accurate. It’s late, our feet are tired, Kyanite is snoring across the campsite, and Whisper just had the first S’more of her entire life. Seems like not much more damage can be done in this day so its off to La La Land. Sweet dreams.