Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail - A Thru Hike (Day 2)

LHHT Day 2
1. Date: 5/4/15
2. Day 2
3. Morning temp: 55
4. Weather: Warm, sunny
5. Time start: 0818
6. Time stop and miles: 1530. 12
7. End point: Rt 30 Shelter
8. Events: Walet's

Log: Nice morning. Packed up and ate and Greg and Becky headed home and we continued south. Today had shorter, but steeper hills. I think i like the long gradual climbs. Got to shelter turn off and hid packs and walked to Walet's for dinner and a couple beers. Came back got packs and headed to shelter. Another good day.

It is normal for me to sleep lightly the first night of a trip and this night was no different.  The hard wood of a shelter floor is nothing like the floating feeling of a hammock, but the shelter was the way this trip was going to be.  It seemed that I spun in a circle all night long.  Back, side, stomach, side, repeat all night long.  

To top that off, my sleeping pad had decided to fail.  I have a Therm-a-Rest Trail Scout, which is a self inflating, foam filled pad.  I had been adding some air by blowing a few breaths into the pad to make it full and firm and I guess this compromised the adherent of the cover to the foam and a large bubble developed at my feet.  Any air I blew in, congregated to this bubble and didn't add any firmness to the mattress.  This translates to sleeping on wood all week.  So, the day started  around 0630 as the dawn crept into the shelter area and we started our morning routines and got ready for another day of walking

Today was billed as a short 10.4 mile day according to my notes, but as I was finding out, the gps wasn't going to listen to any preordained distances.  And... there would be a little issue with the Fairies of the Forest, as I will explain in a bit.  We headed out at 0818 after bidding goodbye to Greg, Becky and Willa.

An interesting rock cairn

The morning started off at around 55 degrees, but soon climbed into the high 70s and maybe into the 80s.  Water was going to be an issue this day.  The first six miles, had three rather sparse flowing creeks and I ended up not drinking enough on this day.  I had filled my water at a creek along the way, but hadn't treated it yet, as there was a possibly better stream a couple miles on, but when we got to that creek, it wasn't much better.

One of the multiple rock mazes.
So much easier to walk through than the AT.

I decided to treat what I had with the aqua-mira and sat to mix the chemicals as KJ hiked on.  After mixing parts A and B you have to wait five minutes, so I decided to start hiking while holding the mixing cap.  I grabbed my gear and started walking up out of the stream valley.  As I went along I saw an array of large stones in the path that provided easy walking in wet conditions and thought it was just another like I had seen a short while ago.  After about a quarter of a mile of walking, just as I reached the top of the ridge again, I came upon a mile post.  It was mile post 50.  I had passed mile post 50 about 15 minutes ago.  Uh, oh.  

Mysterious Mile Post 50

I had a Twilight Zone moment, where I thought for sure, that if I turned around and started walking, I would come to MP 50 once again and this would happen on and on until I died in the forest of the Laurel Ridge, but then I came to my senses and realized that the Fairies of the Forest had turned me around as a joke and were laughing at me from behind the tree over there.  Finally, reality came back and I accepted the fact that as I was concentrating on not spilling my chemicals, I had started walking the wrong way and had climbed out of the stream valley that I had descended a little while ago.  The rocks I had seen were not more of the same style of trail maintenance, but the exact same rocks I had passed before.  I accepted my fate and once again descended to the stream where I knew I would be climbing out of on the other side, but this time going in the correct direction.  I had found a new Trail Name for this trip. Wrong Way Joe.

After retracing my steps and continuing along, I finally came to KJ who was waiting at a very nice flowing stream.  He was wondering what had slowed me down and thought maybe I was talking to some north bounders we had seen along the way.  After filling once more, we headed on again.  This time (and from now on) I would ensure I was following the correct yellow blazes as I hiked along.  Lesson learned: Pay Attention.

Crossed the ancient Forbes Road

So, as I was planning this day, I had noticed that there is a small Bar & Grill only 1/4 mile up the road from the trail crossing of Rt 30 and had planned on eating dinner there as a way to carry a little less food weight.  After a nice rest at the shelter turn off, we decided to hide our packs in the woods and walk to the Bar for some food.  The walk without weight on our backs was much more comfortable and it was about a mile from the trail junction to the bar.

As we walked into the bar we were blasted with two things.  The smell of fresh cigarette smoke and a litany of curses that would make a sailor blush.  It seems we had found the local Pennsyltucky Biker Bar, Walet's.  We got a couple beers and a "menu" and took a seat at one of the tables where I had spied an outlet that I could "borrow".  The place seemed rather crowded for a Monday, but we were hungry (and thirsty) and the longer we sat around, the more my phone would be charged.  It seemed the way the bartender greeted the patrons he knew went something like this.  "Fuck you, you ass hole".  And that was him welcoming the people he knew and liked.  

Well, we eventually moved up to the bar, where our food finally arrived and tasted pretty good.  The have some pretty large meals there and the prices were super low.  We talked to the owner for a while, ate our fill, drank a few and then headed back to the shelter, arriving there at 6:30 pm.  The total distance of the day was 11.4 miles according to the gps, but I didn't track or count our 2 mile walk to and from the Bar and since I couldn't pull up the track on my phone for some reason, I just wrote 12 miles in my journal entry for that night.  Good enough.  

As we were heading back to the shelter, I realized that I hadn't taken a piss all day during the hike and was now getting cramps in weird places like my thumb and the arches of my feet.  Dehydration had set in.  Also, during one of our pack off, shoes off breaks, I notice that a small blister was forming on the bottom of my right little toe, which was one of many I had on my last hike in Eastern PA.  I put some moleskin and tape on it and kept going.  When we got to the shelter, I checked the blister and it hadn't grown at all.  Hmmm, maybe my new regimen of pre-taping and quick action to new hot spots and blisters might make some difference.  I had found a technique for taping your feet with the KT tape for ball of foot pain (metatarsalgia)  that I had suffered last time and so far, so good.  Not much pain (other than the usual) and no other blisters as of yet.  

Shelter #3 was the first one from the trail and our home for the night.  We always check the other shelters for left over firewood that we don't have to carry far and other interesting things and this is what I found on the shelter next to ours.

Shelter Surprise

We set up for the night and had another nice fire in the shelter fireplace and as dark descended, I happily laid around on my faulty sleeping mat and eventually slipped into my nightly spin of sleep that would endure this whole trip.  

Shelter sweet shelter

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6