Memorial Day long weekend

I happened to be hiking through the shanendoha National Park during Memorial Day long weekend. This turned out to be a bitter sweet experience for a number of reasons. Spread throughout the park are campgrounds and associated camp stores and waysides. The food at the waysides is quite expensive but it is hard for a starving hiker to turn down the chance for a non dehydrated meal. I found it especially hard to turn down the fresh food as i was taunted all weekend by the scent of barbques from the jam packed campgrounds. It was like a new form of torture... All around me was a plethora of food but yet I was restricted to my home made dehydrated meals. However, I did luck out the one day and a family gave me a loaf of bread, cheese, and a container of strawberries. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! I was so excited and shared my prize with Draggin fly. He was just as excited as I was. It is amazing how such a small gesture can make such an impression out here. 

Another treat of being in the park was the opportunity to see new faces. Many people were out day hiking and they would stop me and ask lots of questions regarding the trail. I quite enjoyed their conversations and found their responses very entertaining. Other hikers didn't find it as entertaining as I did and tried to avoid the tourists. 

Another positive of being in the park, but eventually became a negative, was how manicured the trail was. The terrain was very gentle and the trail bed smooth. Relishing in the condition of the trail I started pushing big miles. When I looked back through my journal I realized that I had been averaging 20mile days for the last 18days. Sadly, I had to succum to the realization that I was a mere mortal and my body started to fail me. For a five day period I rolled my ankle atleast once a day. This caused me to alter my gait enough that I developed shin splints. Water sources are harder to come by in the park forcing you to hike from shelter to shelter. As a result, my shin splints got worse...much much worse. The pain forced me to cut back my mileage. Even though I was in pain it was kind of nice to be injured as it forced me to slow down and take in the scenery. I went from hiking 8-9hrs a day to 4. All of a sudden I had enormous amounts of time on my hands and I was able to finish one of my books and start reading another. 

I left the park with Harpers Ferry on my mind. The golden half way mark. I could do it...I could keep going...keep the miles low and i'll make it!