Appalachian Trail (day 53) - Black Swatara Creek Campsite to Dans Pulpit / mile 1238

You know you made it as a hiker when you are having Walmart's New York style cheesecake and nacho cheese Doritos for supper.

In the morning I've hiked the remaining 13 miles to the town called Port Clinton and arrived there at 11 AM, unfortunately there was nowhere to resupply. The only restaurant was in a hotel and required you to have a shower before entering the premises. I decided to give it a pass and get a hitchhike to Walmart three miles down the road instead. After 10 minutes of sticking my thumb up an Indian gentleman who just moved to Port Clinton few months ago picked me up.

At the supermarket I've resupplied for another five days and got a footlong sandwich at Subway (it seems like I'm getting addicted to those). I've also bumped into Freewill and Packrunner doing their shopping, I wasn't expecting to see them here! It turned out that Packrunner was starting her "cycle" so they changed their initial plan and decided to stay in Port Clinton for the night. I've sat outside with them while they were repackaging their food and talked about trails they did and the ones they still want to complete, they showed me some pictures from Continental Divide Trail which I wanted to hike in the future, it looked spectacular.

I've also dealt with my resupply, packed few extra bits from bakery as a lot of things was discounted and walked back to the trail. Path was still fairly easy so I managed to do good progress. I saw another black rat snake sunbathing right in the middle of the trail and chipmunks were squeaking and causing havoc just like yesterday.


Weather was supposed to be rainy tomorrow and I was eyeing a potential hostel around 20 miles down the trail to stay at depending on how bad it would get. Options were always good to have.

This is how my Walmart supper looked like, delicious I know!

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