Week Eleven – Harper’s Ferry and a Few Mandatory Days of Rest

Day 71, Monday May 29: Happy Memorial Day! We awoke from a rough night’s sleep for both of us after setting an early alarm so we could start the day early. We packed up our sleeping gear as quietly as we could to avoid waking our two shelter neighbors, and used the nearby pavilion to cook our oatmeal for breakfast. Meadow played the 1994 folk song “Take Me Back to Harper’s Ferry” by Magpie, which evokes the beauty and history of the area and set the tone perfectly for our arrival. We cleaned up breakfast and hit the trail before 7am. Being the first ones on the trail that morning, the spiderwebs across the trail were numerous. I collected the spiders’ nightly work on my face, arms, and legs, stopping frequently to brush off the invisible fibers once they became unbearable. After a half hour of this one of our shelter mates flew past us, and I told him that he could have all the spiderwebs if he wanted them. He was a whole head taller than both Meadow and I, so apparently he was still getting his fair share of webs in the face anyway, despite him being behind us. “You guys are the worst spiderweb removal team ever!” he said, laughing. After he passed us and disappeared, I had no more issues with spiderwebs. The trail was particularly rocky, so we took our time picking our way carefully closer to Harper’s Ferry. We crossed a few power line right-of-ways with respectable views on either side, and one of the ROWs had a few large, blooming bushes filled with huge burgundy flowers that I had never seen before. As we hiked along, we passed a woman with gray hair pulled into a low bun (she looked exactly like Jane Goodall!) as she was walked three dogs, who told us to “Make sure you make a lot of noise after you pass the next hill. You’ll see what I mean, there’s a bear up there.” We couldn’t tell which was the “next hill” and we didn’t see any bear, which was a little disappointing. It’s possible that the bear had fled in terror after seeing Jane Goodall wielding a German shepherd and two terriers. Our friends Christine, Corrinne, and Jason met up with us on our way into Harper’s Ferry, which was wonderful! We approached the conservancy in a surreal haze, unable to believe that we had made it to the “psychological halfway point” on the trail. When we started the AT this milestone had seemed so far away that it was almost unattainable, and we wouldn’t allow ourselves to think about the trail past Harper’s Ferry…and here we were! We walked into the conservancy and had our photos taken for their logbooks. We paged through the rest of the books to see if we recognized anyone who had stopped in before us. To our surprise we recognized only “Itchy Feet” who we had met briefly about a month ago and never seen again as he was moving pretty quickly. We toured around the conservancy briefly before heading to the Rabbit Hole for lunch, and walked around a bit. We saw some of the old canals, now filled with duckweed and turtles, and saw a beautiful crane stalking slowly through the shallow water. We hopped on the parking lot shuttle bus for a quick ride around town before visiting the Shenandoah River. Meadow took a quick dunk in the river before we headed back to the hotel room and Corinne and Jason headed home. Christine, Meadow, and I went to Harper’s Ferry Brewing for dinner and were able to watch the sunset over the Shenandoah River as we ate our pizza and birthday cake caramel popcorn. Back at the hotel room, we sorted through our food resupply that Christine had brought for us, and packed up our stuff to get relatively organized before heading to bed.

Days 72-75, Tuesday May 30 to Friday June 2: In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the dreaded norovirus struck. At least we think it was norovirus; it could have been some other form of gastroenteritis, but we have no way of knowing. Around 2am it became readily apparent that we would not be returning to the Trail the next morning: this was the worst stomach flu I’ve ever had. We took measures to prevent anyone else from getting sick, which primarily involved me being the only person that used the bathroom in our hotel room (a private bath, woohoo!). In the morning Christine and Meadow picked up some supplies for me to stay hydrated and eat as much as I could, which was essentially nothing. On the first day, I could only eat a few bites of a banana and about six plain Cheerios. I wasn’t able to even walk around until the next afternoon, but still I optimistically thought “maybe I can still hike tomorrow…” which was categorically false. By the end of the second day I had eaten almost nothing in 48 hours and could barely walk twenty steps without feeling dizzy. The next day I was still (let’s call it) “rapidly dehydrating” and I realized that it wouldn’t be a good idea to even attempt to hike even if I really wanted to. It was disappointing and frustrating to be kept from the Trail, but I knew that I didn’t have a choice. We left Harper’s Ferry to stay with Meadow’s sister for a few days until things stabilized. Nick arrived on Thursday night to visit for the weekend, and I spent a fair amount of time alternating between sleeping and forcing myself to eat and drink to remind my digestive system that it still had a job to do. (I did skip the all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet that Nick and Meadow went to, though…I’m a big proponent of overkill, but even that seemed like too much for me!). By Friday afternoon (day 4) I was desperate to hike again, but I of course knew I had to wait until it seemed like a smart idea, too. My body seemed ready to try it, so we made plans for Nick to slackpack us on Saturday as a trial run.

Day 76, Saturday June 2: We ate breakfast in the apartment and hit the road by 7:30am, returning to Harper’s Ferry. Nick decided to hike a short distance with us as the trail snaked right through the town, until we hit the C&O Canal Trail. We marveled at how old some of the buildings in town were, and I caught a deer having breakfast in one of the ruined structures.

As we walked though the town square and reached the river, we met someone we did not expect to see again so soon (or maybe ever)–our friend Suntory! He had taken a few days off near Shenandoah to wait for his wife and hiking partner to arrive, and since we had just taken a few days off too, our paths were able to cross again. He and his sweetie had finished their backpacking trip from Front Royal at the northern end of Shenandoah National Park to Harper’s Ferry, and were taking one last short walk in town before Suntory headed back to the Trail and his wife Dipper headed home to Seattle. Excited at the chance to see Suntory again, we exchanged phone numbers and grabbed a photo so we could stay in touch and check in every now and then! We chatted about the Shenandoahs and how taking a few days off the trail had just made us all even more excited to get back to the Trail, even though the rest days were filled with great things like personal comfort and visiting with loved ones. After catching up briefly, we wished Dipper a safe trip home and told Suntory we’d see him up the trail, and pressed on. After crossing the Shenandoah River on a foot bridge by the train tracks, we found ourselves on the stretch of the AT that shares ground with the C&O Canal rails to trails bike path. We said goodbye to Nick at that point, and turned our faces to the sun to keep going. There were a lot of people walking, running, and biking the trail, and we were quickly covered in dust from the fine gravel substrate. The adjacent canals were bright green with duckweed, and at one point I saw a few logs absolutely covered in turtles. There were over twenty turtles sunning themselves in one small area, ranging from maybe six inches long to over sixteen. That was probably more turtles than I’ve seen in my entire life combined up until that point!

After a few miles on the C&O Canal Trail, the AT turned left to climb a hill and our joint venture was over. It was near 90 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the warmest day we had hiked on so far. I tried to drink small amounts of water often, and eat small amounts of food often even though eating food still made me feel wierd. After a few miles my system seemed to accept its fate for the day and I started feeling much better, so I asked Nick to meet us at the later extraction point at 15.6 miles instead of the nearer one at 10 miles. We ran into Papa Smurf again, who we had first met in Shenandoah National Park, and he eyed us suspiciously and asked if we were following him before bursting into laughter. We had a relatively short vertical ascent up a hill before the terrain leveled out; an informational sign told us that we had already crossed the border into Maryland–that was our fifth state, West Virginia, done! It had taken us six days to finish West Virginia with our four days of mandatory rest, and I concluded that it was by far my least favorite state (just kidding…mostly). The terrain in Maryland was VERY flat aside from our first hill, and the trail was at least six feet wide in most places which also stood out as being different from the other states so far. We crossed through a few small parks, and at one point we became part of the backdrop to wedding party photographs.

When we had gone about 13 miles, Nick appeared on the trail! He had parked he car at the 15.6-mile extraction point and hiked back to meet us. We came across a rocky outcropping where a tired, burly-looking guy took a fantastic photograph of the three of us. We chatted and laughed our way back to the car, exhausted and sweating but relieved and excited to have been able to hike a full day. Nick drove us back to the apartment where we showered, cooked dinner, and got organized before heading to bed around 9pm.

Day 77, Sunday June 3: I woke up relatively well-rested and ready to hit the trail. We took our time leaving in the morning to allow time for church, breakfast, and cleaning up the apartment. We arrived at the Trail where we left off the previous day just after 11am, and said our goodbyes to Nick once again. We hoisted our packs onto our shoulders and entered the forest once again. The sky was clouded over when we began our hike, and the forest was eerily quiet. Even the birds seemed subdued despite the fact that there was no wind or incoming storms. After a few miles, however, the birds were chirping normally and a few blue patches were visible in the sky. By the afternoon there wasn’t a cloud to be seen at all through the leaves of the forest canopy. We hiked along the wide, manicured trail of Maryland through the afternoon and eventually reached Interstate 70 where we crossed over the many-lane freeway via a suspended foot bridge. We hiked for over 5 hours, making it just over 11 miles, before we realized we were pretty tired and wouldn’t mind stopping early for the day. The next shelter would have been five additional miles up the trail, and the AT map app we used had reports of several homeless locals taking up residence in the shelter and harassing hikers. So instead of hoping that there were enough hikers at the shelter to create a safe environment, we decided to quit early and miss the shelter altogether! We stopped at a large campsite after a total of 11.5 miles for the day, and noted quickly that this established campsite had both a privy and a bear pole to hang our food. There were two group spaces and five individual tent spots, but we had the whole place to ourselves for the evening. We set up the tent, cooked dinner, and did all of the usual chores by about 6:30pm, and were both extremely excited for sleeping bag o’clock.

While this week certainly didn’t look like we had hoped or planned, I am just so thankful to be back on the trail. Being forced to take a few days of rest certainly isn’t the worst thing that could have happened, and honestly I was grateful from the beginning that I was already in a hotel the night that I got sick. (Starting that whole experience from a tent would have made it even more fun!). I am also so humbled by the people who have been supporting us this week and checking in from a distance, which I appreciated so much! It’s good to be back. 🙂

This upcoming week, we’ll be celebrating a few more milestones including getting back to our home state of Pennsylvania, making the halfway point of the trail (say what?!), and at least one of us will be attempting to eat a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. If that alone isn’t a good enough reason to hike the AT, I don’t know what is.

Thanks for stopping by!