The sleeping pad is tilted because several gallons of trash are wrapped inside.
Michaux State Forest, PA, June 15 – 19, 2022 — We have a split season in Pennsylvania this year. Chrissy Funk is the bun wrapped around Wendy Willis’s burger in the middle.
Chrissy’s first ridgerunner tour ended last Sunday. The next day her jeep aimed for North Carolina where she would reunite with her pampered pug, Zsa Zsa.
The day after Chrissy left, Wendy’s car crunched to a stop on the gravel near the Mason-Dixon Line in the Penn-Mar Park overflow parking lot. From there we were shuttled to the Pine Grove Furnace General Store to begin her 37-mile journey back to Penn-Mar.
Obligatory first picture. Note how Pennsylvania marks its AT road crossings.
Wendy is an ornithologist who partly grew up in Mexico and most recently worked with a bird sanctuary in Peru. She is a PATC trail maintainer in Northern Virginia whose Spanish and English are interchangeable. She’s spending a month of her sabbatical this summer with us.
The first couple of days were humid as Hades with sweat dribbling down our noses like a leaky faucet. It soaked our clothing which ultimately ripened into that mellow hiker essence we all know and love.
Someone’s TP got wet in the rain so, rather than packing it out, they parked it in a fire pit, maybe as future kindling? Nice try. No cigar.
The most common Leave No Trace aphorisms are “pack it in, pack it out” and “take only photos, leave only footprints.” If people would do that much it would help. Obviously stacking rocks surpasses leaving only footprints. In our region rock stacks don’t survive contact with the first responsible person who finds them.
Wendy signs in and checks each shelter log book looking for any remarkable content. The coffee cans behind her contained food left as trail magic for hikers. Luckily it didn’t attract any animals before she had a chance to hike it out to a dumpster 20 miles to the south.
Breakfast at Birch Run and a little map recon of the day’s journey.
Wendy sawed this five inch obstruction and flipped it out of the way. Her first.
What luck to run into Dr. Ken “Nimbus” Bunning, former ALDHA (Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association) Coordinator, who was out for a few days. Ken truly is one of the greats.
You may remember the smashed roof at the Quarry Heights Shelter from the previous blog two weeks ago. It’s fixed thanks to the PATC North Chapter.
Quarry Heights may be the most intimate shelter space on the trail. It’s enclosed by a grove of rhododendrons, features a porch swing, potted flowers, tent platforms and is always in mint condition.
Preparing to truck some trash down the mountain to the dumpster in New Caledonia State Park.
Sawing another small blowdown. Sometimes you apply too much energy and bend your saw which then binds in the kerf.
The Mountain Laurel were peaking while the caterpillars are about to feast upon the oaks.
Meanwhile, a few miles north of us in Maryland, Kasey was wrangling copperheads to help them avoid unsuspecting hikers at a popular overlook.
Sisu