I hit the trail at 6:40. The weather was overcast and muggy. Maryland is relatively flat and much of the day the walking was easy. On the other hand the views were not that great because we seem to be mostly surrounded by flat farmland, there is little evidence of neighboring ridges.
A few sections of the trail were rock gardens, meaning you have to carefully plan and place your feet and your poles. A mistake could mean a fall, a twisted ankle, or a broken trekking pole. This really slows things down. I averaged 2.6 miles per hour for the first two hours, but I doubt I got over 1 MPH on the rock garden sections. Just a taste of what is apparently to come in Rocksylvania
I didn’t have a destination in mind until 4pm. There was a shelter about 8 miles ahead so I aimed for that. The trail had some pretty rocky sections so progress was slow and a bit hard on the legs.
When I got to the shelter the first thing the people there said was Want some pizza? They had ordered two pizzas and there were two slices left, which happened to be vegetarian. So that plus half a bag of cashews plus a peanut butter wrap was my dinner.
There are three of us in the shelter. Trek has done 4 thru hikes and is 82, he says he’s only up for section hikes at his age. I think he said he plans to go about 500 miles. Checkmate is from the Czech Republic and does not play chess. The three of us chatted about the sad state of America. After Trek went to sleep Checkmate and I talked about differences between the USA and our two countries. In many ways it felt like the US is the outlier.
I’m beat from a long walk. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain most of the day. I will do fewer miles tomorrow because my body would not be able to handle two 20+ mile days in a row especially while I’m getting over a cold.
Mile 1033.5 to mile 1058.3 = 24.8 miles
Site of a Civil War battle. The Confederate side lost that battle
Very close to the war memorial, thus is a monument to honor war correspondents
Views to the west from Annapolis Rock. I camped near here a year ago.
