6/01/06 Thursday: Front Royal, VA to Jim and Molly Denton Shelter (5.2mi)

PICTURES:
1. After a rather arduous initial ascent from the road, the trail flattened out and was quite enjoyable.
2. Talk about a nice shelter. Nice porch, plenty of sleeping space, Adirondack style chair on the deck, solar powered shower and a piped spring with a fawcet... LOL very nice....

Hi all... I'm writing to you from the Appalachian Trail Conference HQ in Harpers Ferry, WV. This is the symbolic half way point of the trail but its really only mile 1008. The actual halfway point will be somewhere in Maryland... Things are going well and I'm pumped for big miles in the days to come. I am meeting and will be exceeding my milage expectations in the days to come. I'm doing this and still enjoying myself quite a bit...

I had a busy morning in Front Royal. I had lost my water purification device somewhere on the trail the previous day. I had left notes in trail journals at two different huts and received a response from a hiker who found it. I met him at the grocery store this morning while we were both resupplying for the week to come. I also had a package of supplies at the post office from home that needed to be picked up. And there was the stop at the outfitters to get a repair kit for my tent; I have 2 tent poles with fractured joints. And there was the important issue of breakfast before I get back on the trail... So I got my device back :)... Got my groceries :)... Got my package at the post office :)... Struck out at the outfitters :(... Oh well, Ill try again at the outfitters in Harpers Ferry... I checked out of the hotel about 1120 and made my way about half a mile, to the main road leading back to the trail head. It took about 10 min to hitch a ride the 3.5miles back up to the AT. So by 1145 I was back in the woods with the temp already in the low 90's with about 90% humidity. Definitely the hottest day yet... It took a few hours to make it to the first shelter, the Denton Shelter, and I was dripping wet. The skies were clouding and severe T-storms were expected in the afternoon. There were only 3 of us at this rather lovely shelter so I decided to just hang here for the night, hoping the cold front would move through and tomorrow would be a more pleasant hike... A couple of T-Storms passed and more were coming throughout the night but no real change in temps occured.