I have to be honest. For some reason I wasn't looking forward to my annual Thanksgiving week hike along the Mid State Trail this year. After getting on the trail, I had my ups and downs...both physically and mentally. In retrospect I'm glad I went. Solo hiking seems to cleanse the soul, and I needed to pare the fat off mine.
I got dropped off at Yellow Creek near Loysburg and was headed south to the MD border for this trip, some 50+ miles distant. The MST association does a lot for trail advocacy, all on a volunteer basis for the love of the trail. The Everett regional manager gave me a shuttle and I was off on an unseasonably warm PA day. Thanks Deb!
The Mid State Trail (blazed orange) shares its thoroughfare with the Great Eastern Trail. The trail was well blazed through this section (perhaps in some sections over-blazed as evidenced by the 4 on this tree!).
There was a good bit of bear scat on the trail. It let me know I wasn't hiking alone. But then again, I ran into a hunter on day 3 that indicated they killed 9 bear in this area a few days before. So whose to say if I had company of the ursus variety or if they had all been taken? I do know I saw between 20 and 30 whitetail on this trip.
Water on this trip was hard to come by.
This was confounded by the fact that somehow my filter was broken. I used a combination of judicious not filtering and boiling. Thankfully I never got sick.
Covered Bridge near Hewitt, PA
'til next time....
