Wednesday – 18 September

Destination: RT. 30 Shelter Area (MM 46.5)
Start Location: RT. 271 Shelter Area (MM 56.9)
Today’s Miles: 10.4
Trip Miles: 23.6

There was a very light rain overnight starting about 1:30 but ending before Bob and I got up at six. We thought we had made it through but the day was mostly light drizzle and rain on and off.

We met our first other hikers in the morning. Two guys heading in the opposite direction, northbound. One was from Indiana, Pennsylvania, the other from Columbus, Ohio.

Bob and I were fortunate to have breaks in the showers when we came across interesting rock formations. The trail went through the middle of the cracks in the rocks, sort of mini canyons.

We passed two chairs and a table for tic-tac-toe cut out of logs.

The Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail lives up to its name. Lots of mountain laurel with even a few mountain laurel tunnels. The trail is in great shape with lots of blazes and most areas recently weed wacked. Not having to walk through wet grass kept our feet mostly dry today.

It was still raining when we arrived at camp at 2:30 so we have debated on staying in the shelter or setting up tents while waiting to see if the rain stops. Tents were set up when the rain stopped. That left time to filter water and find a tree to get our bear line ready. The earlier campsites had a “tree” to hang your food to keep it away from bears and other animals. We ate dinner hung our food and crawled into our dry tents. Things are too wet and not much firewood so no campfire. Hopefully things will dry out a bit tomorrow.

Bob and I are unsure of tomorrow’s final plan. We have an eight mile day followed by a fourteen mile day or we can do the fourteen followed by right. Final decision will be tomorrow at eight miles.