Appalachian Trail Thru-hike Journal – Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
10/26/2000
Mile 1165

Finally Back in the South, or close to it.

Hey folks! Sorry to have a lapse in writing but the computer access problem crept up again in Pennsylvania. Let’s see, where to start? Well. I’m sitting in Harper’s Ferry. WV, having walked through Pennsylvania, and Maryland to get here. About 1165 miles down, with 1000 or so to go. I passed the halfway point on 10/ 22. But that’s getting ahead of myself, so I’ll back up…

I left Delaware Water Gap after a wonderful visit from Anne and her grandmother with sort of a heavy heart I’ll admit. Sometimes hiking out here mirrors life at home pretty closely, with both good days and bad. Sometimes the weather’s crappy, food is marginal, sleep gets thrown off, or something else comes up and you just have to deal with it or get off.

Anyway, the infamous Pennsylvania rocks didn’t turn out all to be that big of a deal. It seems that for every tedious mile, there was an easy mile of old forest service road to walk on. And Pennsylvania was wonderfully flat in many areas. So nice. Anyway, I leave Delaware Water Gap and run into some of the folks from Backpacker Magazine doing a photo shoot, on Food no less. To top it off, these fine folks gave me a bowl of the leftovers to eat. Thank you Jonathon Dorn and Company for the pick me up!

Continuing on down the line, the AT comes across the Palmerton EPA Superfund Site. There was a zinc smelting plant in operation in this area for 80+ years. In the process, it seems that all plant life for about 10 miles of so was completely wiped out. It was something like walking through a war zone. Incredible. They’re in the process of trying to bring the area back to life by dumping Ecoloam on the hillsides by helicopter. This was the second EPA Superfund Site on the trail. The other was Nuclear Lake in New York.

Things continued back to normal after that, passing through several small towns along the way – Port Clinton, Duncannon, and Boiling Springs among them. Boiling Springs Is named after a natural, spring fed lake in the middle of town gushing out 25,000+ gallons a day to the river system. It was Friday night, so while I was in town I went to the local high school football game. I had to, because the any school that goes by the name “The Bubblers” has to get at least a look-see. Actually they have a great team, 8-0, with one of their kids getting a full ride to play football a Maryland next year (Derrick Miller). To prove this visit had to be fate, one of the marching band’s first songs was “Georgia on My Mind” Coincidence? I think not.

Getting to the halfway mark meant one thing – getting my Initiation into the Half Gallon Club at Pine Grove Furnace State Park. This is a hiker tradition that goes way back. Here’s the deal. You get to the park store, buy a half gallon of ice cream and if you can eat it in one sitting you get a wooden spoon embossed with “MEMBER OF HALF GALLON CLUB” stamped on it. I think’ froze my brain and came close to seeing my lunch a few times, but hey, I GOT MY SPOON, MAN!

Statistics – Half Gallon Hershey’s Chocolate Ice Cream
16 servings
140 calories per serving (2240 calories)
80% calories from fat
240 grams sugar
434% daily allowance of saturated fat

I didn’t eat dinner that night.

This entire area is steeped in history. Part of the trail goes by the several major battle sites. I drank from the same spring the Benjamin Franklin drank from when he supervised the building of a lookout post for Fort Northhill. When I drank from the spring, I seemed to feel all of Ben’s Inventiveness and intellect coursing through my veins. I was then I realized I was just dehydrated.

Camp David comes fairly close to the trail in this area. I tried to find it to get a full briefing on the current situation in the Middle East, but it appears that I was not on the guest list. I’ll have to have my people looking into that matter.

All of the monuments in this area give me pause to think of all the battles fought in these hills. Amazing to walk to same ridges as thousands of soldiers fought on.

I’m starting to put together a list of trail terms I hear a lot out here and will be writing that out in the next few weeks. The first term though is one of my own. P.M.R – Permanent Music Replay: the occurrence of getting the same song stuck in your head for days on end. This is not to be confused with: P.B.R – Pabst Blue Ribbon: a fine domestic beverage that is both tasty and light on the wallet.

P.M.R selections of the last few weeks (in no particular order)
“Roxanne Roxanne”, UTFO
“Make It”, Aerosmith (it’s the 1st tune on the 1st album)
“Folsom Prison Blues”, Johnny Cash
“Baby Got Back”, Sir Mix-A-Lot (a poet, and artist, and a fine man)
“Say You, Say Me”, Lionel Ritchey (this haunted me for days!)
“R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” as sung by Aretha Franklin
“Aqua Boogie”, Parliament Funkadelic
“Smells Like Teen Spirit”, Nirvana
“Hootchie Cootchie Man”, Muddy Waters
“Stranglehold”, Ted Nugent
“Couldn’t Stand the Weather”, Stevie Ray Vaughn
“Cracked Actor” David Bowie (the cut off Live at the Tower Theater. Wow. Just…wow)
“Third Stone from the Sun”, Jami Hendrix – I’ll never get tired of this tune.
“Night Life”, Willie Nelson
“You Were Born to be my Baby”, Bon Jovi (I don’t know why, please make this one stop!)
“Thunderbird”, ZZ Top (my oldest sister Mitzi gave me this tape (Fandango) for my 13th birthday. Although the tape long gave up the ghost, it’s burned into my memory quite deeply.)

Whew! That’s a bunch of rambling stuff to throw in one update. Thanks for bearing with me. Tonight I’ll cross the border into Virginia where I’ll be for about 475 miles or so. Almost feels like home.

Until next time,

-Johnny Swank