Gilligan on the AT Revisited: 03-Aug-2008

August 3, 2008

This is a 5-month long series of blog posts that are the entries in my journals written on most evenings as I hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1993. The journal entry appears first — indented — and then any additional commentary from my 15-years-removed perspective follows.

8/3/93 – Tue.

I felt like pushing myself today, as I haven’t really done for the past couple weeks, and I wound up doing 26.4 miles over my first real dose of Pennsylvania rocks. Water is really scarce through this section, so it was a long, dry day. My feet really wanted to quit after 24miles, but I made it to the shelter (George Outerbridge) and am no worse off for the experience.

I finally caught up with Chocolate Kris & Bill Is Enough today, although they went the extra couple of miles to stay in Palmerton.

I am staying with Antaeus, though. He is in his early fifties, a textbook writer/editor from St. Louis ("stick with architecture," his advice), who started about a week after I did, passed by when I got off in Elk Park, and  was way ahead of me. Then, he took six days off in Harrisburg, PA, and I caught up with him yesterday. His mileage is pretty high, so I might be seeing more of him, but he really tries not to stay in shelters, so I probably won’t spend many nights with him.

I am carrying an overabundance of food, mostly due to my own miscalculations, so I hope to remedy that in Port Clinton.

Julie seems to be on my mind more than ever now, and Massachusetts seems a long way off. With luck, that will help me slip into a groove/routine that is not so erratic.

I’m a little stumped by my "Port Clinton" comment, as I thought I’d already left Port Clinton behind me by this point.

Posted in Appalachian Trail, Tim