#156 Rocky Mtn. Shelter to Toms Run Shelter - Day 81: ATMM1081.9 - ATMM1101.1
I receive an offer of trail magic that most hikers only dream about.....my trail angels deliver on the other end of Pennsylvania.
4-8-2023
My new friend John is snoring away inside his shelter when I leave camp. I tear a page from my small notebook and write, “Damn good meeting you,” and leave it under a small rock inside his shelter near his boots.
Hiking on this cloudy and cool day through the barren trees along the trail’s crunching leaves remind me of weekend backpack trips I used to take with friends, back when we were all learning new skills from one another. Those Saturdays were almost always cool and sunny while the Sundays were almost always cool and cloudy.
Today has that Sunday feel to it, though it’s not. My mind keeps drifting back to some of those cloudy Sundays, back to the newness of backpacking and the excitement of making new friends.
Though I hike solo these days I’m not alone, I carry within me the spirit of many great adventurers and the knowledge gained from them and with them.
Quarry Gap Shelters, like Tumbling Run Shelter, are well maintained and full of unique character - A Pickett fence, a swing, benches, gnomes, flower baskets, a sun dial, and so much more.
Like at Tumbling Run Shelter yesterday, if it weren’t so early in the day I’d love to stay here tonight.
The trail was lonely again this morning but is becoming crowded as the day progresses. Today is Friday, Good Friday actually, and weekend hikers are coming out to play. And I meet many of them head on.
Stater, a thru-hiker who received his name because he jumps around on the trail instead of hiking through one state after another, sits and talks with me for a while.
I talk with a local Indian man with a large dog on a leash near PATC Milesburn Cabin, just off trail. He gives information about the area that neither helps nor harms me, as I’m traveling by foot, not truck.
Just after passing an elderly couple heading north to stay in the next shelter, I slam head-on with the church group of four men and a dozen or so teenage boys. I step to the side to let them pass. I’m glad that rowdy bunch is hiking in the opposite direction.
Stopping for a break at Birch Run Shelter, I meet Allen and his wife Georgetta. Allen thru-hiked the trail in the eighties. Georgetta likes much shorter treks, so they occasionally head to the trail for long weekend trips. For example, this is Easter Weekend.
When Allen finds out I’m hiking with only one pair of socks, he offers an unused pair of his, I accept.
“I owe you a cup of coffee,” I say as he hands me two grey socks.
“Thanks, but I don’t drink coffee”,
“Hot chocolate then, with lots of marshmallows”.
He learns my wife is a Presbyterian minister, then learns part of the story of why I’m out here hiking solo. Having similar backgrounds on both fronts he offers to me the kind of trail magic all hikers dream of, but few will ever receive.