Wednesday May 1, 19.7mi/31.7km

Four-mile tentsite WV (1021.2) to Rocky Run shelter MD (1040.9)

The rain had stopped after midnight last night, and the wind dried off the tent nicely. I was hiking by 7:30am, to make it to the ATC headquarters by 9am when they opened. The trail started off very rocky.

It wasn’t far to town, only 4 miles.

I crossed a bridge over the Shenandoah River, it felt like the grand entryway to town.

I got to Harper’s Ferry a little early, so I did some tourist-ing around town.

I walked over to the ATC (appalachian trail conservancy) building, and they invited me in and gave a tour.

They also take a photo of each hiker for the archives/yearbook, which is pretty neat. I was hiker #838 in Georgia at the start, now I’m #71.

I got my resupply box, washed up, and continued on to finish exploring town.

I stopped at a deli for lunch, and of course also had an ice cream sundae. The walk out of town was over another bridge, over the Potomac River.

And with that, I was in Maryland! The trail followed the river on the C&O canal towpath for 3 miles.

Then, up up up to a ridge. Since it was so foggy today, there were no views. I did get to walk through Gathland state park.

The trail was mostly smooth, but would have occasional brief sections of rockiness.

I arrived to the shelter at 5:30pm, and found a couple of other hikers already there, Molasses and Redwood Rambler. Dominique (Netherlands) arrived a few minutes later. A couple other flip-flop hikers from NYC arrived too. Seems like I will be seeing more hikers now, since there were many flip-floppers starting in Harpers Ferry this week. Good thing all these Maryland shelters are huge!