Appalachian Trail Happiness: Pennsylvania Part 2

The green tunnel in PA

As I stated in Appalachian Trail Happiness: Pennsylvania – Part 1, I really liked southern PA.  The trails in Southern Pennsylvania were great, a few rock runs but nothing worse than most of the terrain up to that point on the AT.  The trail was very different however in another sense.  Except for the occasional SOBO thru-hiker and section hiker, the trail was full of mostly weekenders, day hikers and school groups.

I actually enjoyed the school groups, particularly one from Gettysburg College that I camped with for a couple of nights.  It was fun to talk with college freshman, something I spent a lot of time doing in my former job.  However, the lack of thru-hikers changes things, thru-hikers are a different breed, a breed I feel a part of, even if my knees won’t allow me all 2200 miles this year.

I also seemed to be attracting cute little critters on the PA leg.

Also a reminder on this leg that the real danger in the woods is often the little things, not the big things.  This nest was about 3 feet off the trail at one of the shelters.

As I rolled through PA, you also encounter all of the midpoints, the original, the permanent and of course the current:

Finally, me and my last hiking partner rolled into Pine Grove Furnace State Park, home of the half gallon ice cream challenge.  The store/grill is awesome and the owners are super hiker friendly.  It was nice to walk into someplace and see an owner who was more excited about hiker customers than the general public.  My stomach has begun to increasingly not handle large quantities of dairy well, so the half gallon turned into the ice cream bar challenge and a very happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane