June 24-July 1

I'm am currently,  sitting at Blue Mountain Summit B&B waiting on UPS to deliver my new shoes. I just wanna say I love Solomon shoes and the company,  the Solomon's I'm currently wearing have over 700 miles on them and have held up great but they are worn out as any trail runner would be. Last week I called the company told them what I was doing and with no hesitation they shipped me a new pair.

Since my last post I have moved  100 miles north with one zero day. The weather and trail have been rough. We have officially hit the "hell" of northern Pennsylvania.  There are rocks absolutely everywhere,  and when wet they are extremely slippery and dangerous,  which makes hiking slow and tedious. Bugs, particularly nats are driving me nutty, there is nothing like trying to navigate wet rocks with nats flying in and around your eyes all day ugh I hate them. Belgium hiker Hot Foot was taken off trail the other day by the fire dept. due to the giant bullseye on his leg...Lime Disease!  Personally I have only had four ticks on me but none have embedded for now.

Trail magic has been nice lately though even with inclement weather.  We have had 3 different trail angels with food and one that Slack packec sunshine and I 16miles which was awesome. Bag Of Tricks was who slack packed us, but on top of that he tracked down my Trekking poles that I had left in a car on accident in Port Clinton, PA and had them waiting with my pack at the end of our slack pack.

In Port Clinton/ Hamburg I picked up my two mail drops, the first one was my normal food drop from my sweet mother and the second was from a good friend named Brad, its always exciting to get packages with unknown goodies in them, thanks a lot buddy it made my day. I also want to thank Nanny and Papa Elliott and my Uncle Billy for donating some money to help me to keep going north. Love all of you.

I'm happy to say we have less than 1000 miles to go...we should be in Delaware Water Gap by independence day, which is the PA/NJ state line. Currently our mileage is 1238 miles from Springer Woot!

Its Raining AGAIN. ... but I still wish UPS would show up, we need to hike! Today we will cross the Knife Edge and Bear Rocks, both should be equally a pain in the ass in the rain and dangerous...Maine doesn't move south though so we must put our heads down and push on.

I'm sorry for being late on my post...I've been wore out every day and just want to sleep but I will do my best to keep you updated.

Have a great day...

Carpenter

June 23

Zero day in the woods...not much going on just napping and eating food...some weirdo hiker is here...whatever...hiking out early in the morning for hopefully a good 20 mile day.

Carpenter

June 22

Today was a short easy day into duncannon PA, home of the Doyal hotel and bar. S' rocket said it the best " there is a fine line between a crack house and a hiker hostel". The Doyal has no A/C and is filthy even for a thru hiker. Sunshine and I got a room against our better judgement and attempted to call it home for the night. After we got our food drops sorted out and ate dinner we hung out with the other hikers, actually a ton of hikers. We are back in a bubble,  but everyone seems really cool. About Midnight the room was still 80+ deg. so we gathered our gear and left the Doyal in the dead of night. 5 miles to the next camping area, the terrain was steep and extremely Rocky, but we pushed on. We arrived at camp about 2am. exausted and ready for bed.

June 21 Summer Solstice

Today was an easy day 16 miles of flat walking, with phone signal.  I made phone calls basically all day to friends and family while I walked, which is really nice because time and miles pass with ease. Summer Solstice is "naked hike day" we were most definitely not in the best section for it due to the multiple road crossings, but that didn't stop some people...Including Dump truck,  clever girl and whistle who came strolling into camp wearing nothing but packs and shoes. We all had a good laugh other than the weekend hiker who wanted nothing to do with it.

Carpenter

June 20

Killed 20 miles today, the first hour and a half I played air guitar with my trekking poles to wide spread panic and primus. Personally I think I'm getting really good at it lol I'm not sure what the south bound hikers thought but oh well. I feel good getting a 20 in its been a while no matter how sore my feet are. Tomorrow it looks like we will be doing 15 miles through corn fields before we get back to the mountains, not looking forward to it but whatcha gonna do. Tonight I am camped just outside of boiling springs PA. about 15 feet from rail road tracks, but its the only camp for 7 miles south and 16 miles north. Weather is great though...ugh damn trains blowing horns...

She ain't no flower child.
Carpenter

June 19

13 mile Day in PA...Today sunshine and I hiked with Grim, whistle, dump truck, and clever girl. Grim and I raced the 5.1 miles to the Official halfway point 1093 miles. We killed the 5.1 in 1hr. 10min. woot!

After arriving to the halfway point, we made a music video to "we're halfway there" by Van Halen.  Its going to be hilarious!  Once we we're done the group headed on 4.2 miles to Pine Grove Furnace State park for the Half Gallon challenge.  The challenge is like it says...you must eat a half gallon of ice cream and hold it down. Dump Truck was a success as for whistle she returned the ice cream to its original container just in a liquid form. Now we are camped in a "Modern Campsite"  lol the only modern this is it cost money.  Now I sit at a picnic table eating and blogging while they play cards... That is all for today. Good day!

June 18

RAIN but I can't Complain!  These last few days have been great, so I will catch you up on what's going on. Sunshine is dealing with sciatica,  which makes it painful to walk and even worse with a pack on. In order for her to heal we have been doing low miles and really taking it easy.

On sunday we had done 8 miles when we came so a road crossing near South Mountain PA. there we discovered there was a bar/restaurant 1.3 miles down the road. After walking the 1.3 miles we found the bar, had food and drinks and began to meet the locals. SunShine had a bag of ice on her leg which must be the International sign for injury. This is how we met Travis and Kristen an amazingly awesome couple from South mountain,  who are extremely generous and kind. They invited us to stay at their house and take sunshine to the chiropractor.  We stayed at their house for two nights and had a great time around the fire making jokes and playing catch phrase...the girls won ugh. Thank you guys so much!

We were in no hurry this morning, we left south mountain about noon and started hiking north again, after about 6 miles we came to a park with a food stand and grabbed some lunch. About this time the rain started...we sat in the rain eating our for and lo and behold Grim, whistle, dump truck and clever girl come strolling up. It was so great to see those guys again, and of course the shenanigans began immediately. 

The last shelter was beautiful with flowers and a creek running through it, but Sunshine and I decided to move on while the rest of the group set up camp. Which brings us to where we are now. Thunder in the distance and the smell of more rain caused us to make a quick decision to make camp, and thank god we did not even 10 seconds after we got ourselves and our gear in the tent the skies opened up. Now I lay here listening to the rain and sunshine eat almonds lol. Tomorrow we will reach the official halfway point and the half gallon challenge.  Hopefully we can get 15 or more miles in. Good night from Rocksilvainia...

Carpenter