Keystone Trails Association – Fox’s AT Thru Hike – Day 75

Today started out as another day in Rocksylvania. However, that changed when I passed a sign. The sign merely said the next section is maintained by the Keystone Trails Association. I did not then realize the significance, but it soon became apparent.

Like the Potomac club, you can tell this is an active club who both maintains trail and builds treadway. Suddenly there were much fewer large, loose stones in the middle of the path. Sharp, narrow, upright stones had been pulled up and laid flat. Even more remarkably, treadway was laboriously laid through boulder fields.

Up until today I accepted the rocks. After all, how could it be any different? Well the Keystone Trail Association showed me how and boy, was it different. It turns out, Rocksylvania does not have to be repetitive stretches of foot murdering stones. The trail was still challenging. There are still scrambles. But it felt less like pointless pain.

Sure, we can debate if this sort of treadway building is good. I think it is, but maybe others like Rocksylvania the way it is. The trek survey indicates otherwise, but it is a small sample. The point is not to say we must or should build a treadway through the rocks. But the fact remains that we could.

And that fact, having proof it does not have to be so, makes me dislike the rocks even more.

• Breakfast: protein oatmeal x3
• Dinner: ramen x2, tuna
• Snacks: cheese its, pop tarts, fig bars x2, oat bar x2, nb oat crumble, uncrustable x4, kind bar, clif bar
• Met today: Brightside
• Days without a ramen bomb: 75
• Today I am thankful for: Keystone Trails Association