June 10 - 22.6 / 1,148.9

As I was laying on my sleeping bad, I heard what I thought was either a person or a large animal. I kept waiting to hear a pack hit the ground or a tent being zipped up. I heard neither so I figured it was an animal and went to bed. When I got out of my tent in the morning, I saw a tent set up a few yards away. It was one I hadn't seen before and figured it was just a section hiker that got in late.

I packed up my tent and headed over to DS's. He was still asleep in his hammock. A little surprised, I woke him up for breakfast. We got going and stopped about 8 miles in for a quick break. Well, I thought it was going to be quick. I went to adjust my shoe laces as they felt a little loose from the morning hike. In looking down, I noticed my shoe lace had broke. Luckily I had bought replacement laces a few days earlier. It ended up taking me an hour to relace. The laces are small kevlar ones and were a pain to try and get through the eye lits. While sitting there, Fusion, a thru hiker we hadn't met yet, passed by. We told him to meet us at The Doyle in Duncannon for lunch.

On the way in to town, DS and I met a southbounder. The crazy thing is that this guy had a four year old iguana climbing around on his pack. It even decided to take a liquid piss/poop while we were standing there. We continued on to Duncannon and The Doyle. Fusion was there when we arrived. Fusion, DS, and I all had lunch there. For me, it was the Chuckwagon burger which was a deep fried patty. It was actually good. We didn't stay at The Doyle, but we heard from others that it is what you pay for. For $25, that can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. I took a nap after lunch outside on the sidewalk. I was not too impressed with Duncannon. It was a little depressing to walk around a town that is so run down.

We had a 1.5 walk through town before we got back to the woods. DS and I got a good view of a perigren falcon flying around. We suspect that it had a nest under a bridge that we walked over. It would fly out and then fly back toward us and cut under the bridge at the last second. It was a good climb once we got into the woods. At the top of the climb, we were met by Castor who was actually hiking southbound. We were caught off guard as we thought he was a day ahead of us. He asked if we had seen Spatula. He said that the two of them had left town together about 3 hours before hand. Castor stopped at the shelter to take a break, but Spat had not shown up in over three hours. It is only an hour walk from the road to the shelter. Eventually, Castor called Spat and discovered that he had passed the shelter and hiked on. We were relieved to know he wasn't lost.

DS, Cast, and I hiked on to the next shelter. We arrived fairly late. The water source at the shelter was not the most accessible. To get water, one had to walk down 307 stone steps and then walk those steps back up to get back. Luckily for me, DS volunteered to do it and take my bucket down to fill up with him.

My legs really hurt by the end of the day. I got to enjoy the PA rocks for most of the day. Even if I am not hiking on top of rocks, the ground seems hard and as if the rocks are just below the surface. However, it is flat for the most part which makes it bareable.

The shelter was a very nice shelter. Walking Man and Grace and Glory were the only two that stayed in the shelter. It was the first time I had seen them in a few hundred miles. Things had changed since the last time either. For some reason they set their tent up in shelters. I understand to not have to deal with the bugs, but why not just put the tent on the ground outside of the shelter especially if you know it isn't going to rain? I'm baffled. The rest of us tented or hammocked. It was a good group: DS, Castor, Spatula, Fusion, Hopi, and myself.

As I was talking to Michelle and about to go to sleep, I heard someone start yelling for help. It was Castor, and he was saying he had a bug fly into his ear. To some degree it had a little humor to it. DS got out of his tent and help to resolve the situation with some water and a water syringe that Hopi had in his first aid kit. I did provide WFR support by helping to tell DS what to do to flush his ear out.

The rest of the night was calm and the temp was perfect.