Day 172 - Thursday, October 7, 2021

Today is Day 2 of our Final 4 Hike Countdown. This will also be our LAST long hike (18.4 miles) 👏 as the 2 final hikes are just about “Nero’s” by hiker standards 😉.  It’s just the way the parking matched up… don’t forget we’re “Platinum” Slack Packer’s 🙄.

Today we are continuing hiking from Pen Mar County Park (1066.6 NoBo) to the I-70 Footbridge, US 40 (1048.2 NoBo) for a total of 18.4 miles. 

We began hiking at 8:00 am.






We were hoping to have breakfast with “Fresh Ground” but he must’ve set up his “Trail Magic” further SoBo 🥲.


This is a vintage sign as total is 2193.1 miles not 2000 miles.




Hike started off simple enough…









Then a few rocks… 





And a few more rocks…I don’t want to dwell too much over this but if I didn’t know better, I'd swear I was back in “Rocksylvannia” 🤬. If I had to guess, I would say 70% of the trail today was rocky.


Then there were  better trails too…






So I thought …. 🤯.  I tripped over a root half covered with leaves. Turtle Power said I finally had an impressive fall not my typical “touch” when my trekking poles kick out on me 😬🤭. This gave Turtle Power a temporary one up on the slip/fall count with only 2 hikes remaining… but as we all know, anything can happen till you step off the trail 🤫. 




Rock hoping across a local stream… I can still do it if I have too 😉.






I can do this all the way to Harpers Ferry 😉.



“Happy eternal trails”  Pogo Rheinheimer .







Final descent of the day…. on a kinder, gentler trail.



The I-70 Footbridge. We’ll resume hiking SoBo here tomorrow. We finished hiking at 5:05 pm.



Appalachian Trail Countdown:
Total trail miles: 2171.2 miles
Trail miles left to go: 21.9 miles

Till next time... Happy Hiking    🥾 

😋


“Acts of generosity in this wild and primitive setting…where basic amenities…are intentionally absent–are often received in a heightened sense of wonder and gratitude by hikers. These acts of generosity are referred to as “trail magic.”

                   (Appalachian Trail Conservancy)




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