Project Eveningland

5/30/2023 Tuesday

I have a morning routine in Harpers. They know me at the bakery. After breakfast I paid my tab at the inn, packed up, and headed out. I wasn’t feeling confident about the miles ahead given the stiffness and soreness in my lucky foot.

There’s been a fair bit of soreness and stiffness going back to that unplanned 20-mile day in the Shenandoah. And maybe before that. Aches and pains don’t go away with trail legs necessarily. Adjustments are being made. I took extra breaks to stretch and planned a shorter first day out.

The trail north of Harpers Ferry joins the old towpath along the canal, now a bike trail of some renown. The great stone pillars of old bridge supports jut out of the Potomac, now partially covered in growth. Large piles of dead tree trunks and brush have accumulated against them. These great standing hulks look mellow, relieved even, in the warm sun of a late spring day.

Many day hikers were about. One man started talking to me as soon as he saw me and set about convincing me that I needed to take a blue blaze to go the viewpoint at the top of the ridge. “I know you thru-hikers are often trying to make the miles, but it’s the best view in Maryland.” I was working my way uphill and didn’t stop walking. I slowed for a bit to be polite but kept moving and he increased the speed of his pitch. “Thanks!” I shouted back, in the middle of his sentence, as though I was being reluctantly pulled away by something other than my own two legs. There were too many people about to stop. But that guy had loved the view so much he wanted to share it!

I thought about my cancelled 2020 flip flop AT hike, which would have started here were it not for the global pandemic. This morning when I looked at the picture in the app of the shelter I planned to hike to—Crampton Gap—I recognized the photo. I had looked at it while planning years ago. That’s the first shelter I’ll stay at, I’d told myself.

Before the trail left the towpath, it passed small brackish ponds, now stagnant in places where the canal once was. The water is covered in bright green slime, totally opaque. A shocking number of turtles clamber over one another to sun themselves on logs.

I reached my endpoint just before four. Crampton is a picturesque little shelter. The Ed Garvey shelter, which I reached earlier this afternoon, was a two level showy affair, with a back ladder entrance and a little balcony. Crampton, though, is much older and humbler. It has a smaller entrance than usual that gives it a Keebler elf vibe. It is freshly painted and quite clean with a big deck that’s been added. The reddish brown paint on the ancient logs and the dark green of a fresh metal roof go well together.

The water source at Crampton is a tiny, weak spring that required patience to fill from but met my needs. I’m camped in one of the many spots above the shelter. I’ll go back down to the shelter in the morning to use the privy—also freshly painted and looking well maintained.

The trail traverses a narrow corridor through Maryland it seems. Human settlements are on either side of the ridge. As the trail passed through a state park, I took in the ruins of old stone buildings, the grass around them neatly mowed, with bronze plaques to tell their stories.

It’s peaceful in the woods today. Summer is here, and it’s a real invitation to relax, if you can—not easy on a thru hike. I plan to enjoy a quiet evening in my tent, listening to the trees moving in the breeze.