July 3, 2004

I woke up at the 501 Shelter where Bear and I shared a fully enclosed shelter with Epiphaneous.  Epiphaneous is an early riser, so on this day, I was too.  My hike was difficult over miles of pointed rocks.  Each step is carefully placed but my feet take several twists, turns and pounding during my trek northward.  I keep telling myself that Pennsylvania is a new type of preparation for Katahdin, ME.

I arrived at Eagle's Nest Shelter around 5:00 p.m., where I immediately donned my bug suit.  Yep...I wear a bug suit during my non-hiking hours because the bugs are biting.  I look ridiculously silly but it's all good out here.  Anything goes.  As I prepared my dinner of Lipton noodles with sour cream and chives along with herb and garlic tuna, we all doctored our feet.  RoadRunner was popping blisters, I was rolling my tennis ball under my feet, Bear removed his hiking shoes and put on his Crocs for comfort, and TwoCents sat down to rest his feet.  The topic of conversation was the PA rocks and mileage left in PA.  Bear and I hiked on another two to three miles and hurriedly pitched our tents while the bugs were biting.  Inside my tent I asked Bear.

"Did you hang your bear bag?"

"Nope," he said. "But you can if you want."

I chose to stay inside my tent to avoid getting eaten alive.  I also prayed that the bears were nowhere near our campsite.  I was asleep before dark.