May 5
End: Tumbling Run Shelter (Snoring), PA
Miles: 29.8
Total: 2928.9
Though I had gotten to bed late, I was up early and on the trail. We were hoping to cover the most miles we had ever done together in one day, and I wanted to make sure I was in good shape to get to the shelter before dark, as I did not like hiking at night.
I visited the Washington Monument, but not the one in the District of Columbia. It was a nice stone monument with a good view from the top. The morning hike took me in between houses in Maryland, and past many people out for a day hike. I was happy to find that I now had plenty of cell phone service, which had not been the case on the Appalachian Trail until then.
Covering ground quickly, I arrived at Pen Mar Park just after noon and stopped for awhile. I had planned to catch up on my journal, but there were many people at the park, and a few wanted to talk to me about my hike. I also ate some Nutella scavenged from the hiker box at the ATC.
Drop Out, a member of the Hot Garbage Crew, showed up. He said that the group was getting off of the trail to party in Gettysburg for a few days. I continued to sit, though my time was dwindling and I would have a tough time finishing my planned hike before dark. Finally Spiral and Swivel showed up, and Spiral proclaimed that he was not going to do the full hike, and was going to stop at an earlier shelter instead.
After they had eaten some food we left the park and I started hiking again after my three hour break. I let the other two go ahead while I wrote a journal entry, then caught up with them, only to stop and do another entry. This seemed like a good way to stick with my friends while still working on my journal.
We passed several shelters and Old Forge Park before arriving at the Tumbling Run Shelters. There were other hikers there, but thankfully still room for us in Snoring shelter (the shelters are humorously labeled Snoring and Non-Snoring).
We talked at length with Tin Man, who had lots of information for us from his thru-hike the previous year. Finally we got to bed after another pretty successful day on the trail.
