Started the morning with a trip to the Sage Coffee Shop in Pottsville. Enjoyed a nice breakfast of eggs, french toast, bacon, and a yogurt parfait. Jon met us at there and waited for us to finish and then gave us a ride all the way back to the Hamburg trailhead. What an amazing bit of luck to meet him and spend a day in Pottsville.
Wet weather had moved in overnight and we started off in a steady drizzle. I’ve always said I enjoyed hiking in the rain but the rocks of PA becoming slippery is not as fun. There was a decent part of the trail today that didn’t include rocks, but the vast majority did and made for some slow going. Toward the end of the day Miranda slipped on a wet boulder and her foot slid and became temporarily wedged between a couple of rocks; she got loose but fell in the process. No serious injuries fortunately.
We were going for a 22 mile day, and the slow going over wet rocks combined with a semi late start from town made for a long day. We were still walking well into the evening, barely making it to the shelter before we would have had to bring out headlamps. And that’s when the day got interesting! No one else was at the shelter so we were pretty happy about that, but within moments we heard someone coming toward us, but not from the path from the AT – someone was coming up a path from the spring. He called out, “Hey there at the shelter, we come in peace!” I said something back like, “ok good” and he repeated his original call. By now we could tell that the we he spoke of was a dog he had with him. He came closer and it was a man, maybe 60, carrying a large hunting rifle. At least there was no way he was planning on staying at the shelter, he had no other gear. He came over and told us he lived nearby and went down to clean out the spring. I’m all for people helping out like that but it was very strange for him to do it at dusk with a dog and a large gun. He left shortly though, and we slept well, just THF in the shelter.