Intense Schedule

I always wondered how I would feel after 11 days straight of hiking 25+ miles with no zeros (not walking any trail miles) in between.

…well I technically still have one more day of walking, but it’s close enough.

When I planned where to have Katie (my fiancé) meet me on the trail, I was feeling pretty ambitious. Perhaps a little too ambitious :P. I was in Harpers Ferry, WV and was feeling pretty tough for making it that far already, so I told Katie to meet me at Delaware Water Gap, PA (about 270 mi away) in 11 days. Eleven days. I thought, well I average about 25 miles a day, should be no big deal right? Dang.

It’s been great having the motivation to make it to DWG and its really been keeping me going. And despite the intense schedule I feel pretty solid. I also realized that I’m more of a hike 30ish miles, then hike 20ish miles kind of guy. partly because there’s been several things that have slowed me down along the way:

Perfect sunset at Pen Mar State Park

Crossing the halfway point and stoping for manly poses

Destroying half a gallon of ice cream in 33 minutes

Stupid Pennsylvania rocks!

Other than that my legs are holding up perfectly and it’s been no problem keeping up the high mileage. Katie will be here Monday and it will be awesome to see her for the first time since Ive been on the trail (75 days). I can’t wait to relax and spend some time with her.

-Smilin’ Joe

More rocks!