Friday, April 22nd

Waynesboro, PA (1069.9 mi) to Quarry Gap Shelter (1087.8 mi)

Hiking Miles: 17.9

Total Ascent: 2,870.4 ft

Total Descent: 2,682.1 ft

Total Grade: 306.4 ft/mi

Steps: 40,504

Keystone and Luke picked us up right on time @ 8:45 am. I wore my new knee brace coupled with KT tape to help stabilize my leg/knee in anticipation of the rocky Pennsylvania hike. It was a beautiful sunny morning and we were feeling the added weight in our packs from yesterday’s resupply. But we were well rested and felt good!

We climbed several ups & downs on trail but kept a reasonably good pace throughout. We met a young girl moving swiftly that we named “Tinker Bell”. She was running southbound dressed in fairy wings & glitter and for footwear she was sporting sandals. We also passed and chatted with a NOBO hiker who was the unknown person that stayed at the Pine Knob Shelter site when we were there. We learned that his trail name was “Rosemary”. His actual name was Herb, so someone gave him that trail name, and he “accepted’ it. It is customary for hikers to either accept or reject a trail name if someone offers them one.

And also along the way we spotted interesting bugs, Easter eggs hanging on a tree, and evidence that our hiker friend from Harpers Ferry, Yota, had been here.

We hiked 21 miles to the Caladonia camping ground, and while there we decided to go 2 additional miles uphill to the Quarry Gap Shelter. During that stretch, we passed through a green tunnel that had such a calming vibe. It included a man made rock staircase, and it was obvious the greenery was well groomed. It clearly was the BEST shelter site we stayed at thus far – clean privy, stream, green grass fields, cozy tent sites, picnic tables, decorations, and just an overall quaint campsite.

We ate dinner – ramen, and Stevie also had a slice of pizza from a hiker named “Rich”. He had hiked two miles downhill to meet friends off-trail, then hiked back 2 miles with leftover pizza from the parlor where he met his friends. Rich was a retired software programmer and he had been on trail now for a week. During that time in a cold storm, he got absolutely soaked (tent and all) during the night which caused him to get a minor case of frostbite.

Rich had no trail name yet so we called him “Pizza Delivery Guy”. He was staying in the shelter with Rosemary, and Rich mentioned to him that his mattress had a slow leak, and that he gets up every two hours to inflate it. Rich hoped that Rosemary didn’t mind. That said, it couldn’t be any worse than listening to the Whippoorwills that were singing ALL NIGHT long.