21 April William Penn Shelter

Cool wet morning, about 40+.  Became more cloudy with just a little light rain.  High in the low 60s. 

A rough day today.  When we woke,  the outside of the tent was wet from a little light rain and/or heavy dew.  The inside of the tent was wet from condensation (this happens).  But somehow, part of Wendy's sleeping bag got wet.  We wanted to dry the tent.  We needed to dry her bag.  Wet bags will not keep you warm. 

We hung up both bags and hand dried the tent.  Then we waited for the sun to come up to help us.  The tent and my bag did fine.  I built a fire (which was not easy) to speed up Wendy's bag.  All this delayed our departure until about 9:00.

The climb up from Swatara Gap was approx. 1000 feet.  Once I recovered, we did good time along the crest of the ridge.  That is until my right knee started hurting, not from any specific injury, just gradually increasing pain.  This the knee that has been operated on twice.  I had to stop twice but eventually it loosened.  Naturally, this is when the trail became very rocky.  Very difficult and slow going (maybe 1/2 mile per hour).  It took forever to get to this first shelter - our plan was to continue four more miles to the next shelter.

I have soaked it in cool water and will put heat from a stick on pad on it tonight.  It is feeling better.  Tomorrow we will try to go the four miles to the next.  If OK, we will continue.  If I can't, we will have to get off the trail at least to get more food.

On a more positive note, the temperature was good for hiking and we did not have to hike in the rain.  While still at low elevation, we saw a large area of nothing but May Apples.  At higher elevation, we walked through a couple of areas where the entire forest floor was covered with new shoots of ferns, all 8-10 inches high, close together with almost no other kinds of plants.  Just the forest canopy overhead and the ferns underneath.

We met Box Man and Drifter today, NOBO (north bound) section hikers who have hiked much of the AT over the last 10 years.  Box Man is loaning me a knee brace.

We also met Southside yesterday and again today.  He too started at Harper's Ferry (HF).  He has started a thru-hike from Springer the last 2 years and both years had to quit at HF.  The first year, he had knee problems leading to surgery and the second year he had heart problems that lead to open heart surgery last fall.