Days 15 through 17

Day 15  some NOBOs one view and an interesting evening

Hiked today 19.6  total hiked 221

Today was a pleasant hike of nearly 20 miles from Birch Run shelter to the Tumbling  Run shelter. It was a pleasant day for hiking with a nice, not too warm, temperature and mostly sunny.
Early on, I met Easily Forgotten a Nobo who I had heard of from other northbound that I had passed.  We took a picture together as you can see below.

Near the end of the hike, I came to the one spectacular view of this day. The photo below shows a view from chimney rock, a truly spectacular rocky prominence that gives you a great view of both the Appalachians and the valley.

For the last 7 miles of this hike, I intermittently saw members of a group of eight people from Ontario, Canada are also going to camp at Tumbling Run.  They were all from a hiking club based near Toronto and they were really a great group of people. They kept a really good pace of over 2 miles an hour and were hiking around 12 miles a day. Not bad for group of section hikers!

Day 16: A long dreary day 

Hiked today 18.1  total hiked 239

Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted my entire day 16 narrative from my iPhone. What I remember about the day is it was long and dreary. I hiked 18.1 miles from the Tumbling Run Shelter to the Ensign Cowell Shelter.  I did save one picture to show how dreary the first view, from Penn Mar Park in Maryland.  They have a beautiful view platform at the park, but the view was nonexistent on this day.

Day 17: A beautiful day after the dreary one

Hiked today 15.7 total hiked 255

It rained often on all night and my tent was still covered with water when I woke up for day 17.  Hoping that it would dry a little I walked down to the shelter, took time to have a breakfast with my fellow hikers and took care of some privy business.  The tent didn’t seem to have dried at all when I packed it up.

As I was getting ready to leave, the sun came out and it looked like a great day for hiking. I got on the road a little late at 8 AM.

Early in the day, I met an older woman from Australia, who makes a trip here fairly often specifically to hike one of the great trails in the United States. In her early 60s about 10 years ago, she hiked the Appalachian Trail twice and the PCT, very impressive for someone in their early 60s. This time she’s finishing the Appalachian Trail from Harpers Ferry to Catan after starting at last year. She’s currently 75 years old!

Today had some really great views. The first is a place called Black Rock Cliffs, a rocky promontory that allows a spectacularly wide vista to the valley below.  The three pictures below are different views from the same point.

The second  view was from Annapolis Rock less than a mile from Black Rock Cliff.

Toward the end of my hike, I arrived at the Washington monument in Maryland. It is a monument that was built nearly 200 years ago to commemorate George Washington.  Although the monument went through a few iterations over the years, I believe now it has been returned to the original design shown below.

There is also a spectacular view from the monument.

I set up my my tent for the night at the Rocky Run shelter, which was 15.7 miles from where I started at the Ensign Cowell shelter.
Tomorrow, my wife will meet me in Harpers Ferry with resupply. I really need it. I have a few breakfasts of oatmeal left and some small snacks and that’s it. For dinner tonight I had two small sealed packs of tuna and two pop tarts, definitely not enough calories!