{"id":802,"date":"2014-07-07T19:57:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T23:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/wordpress-happytrails\/?p=802"},"modified":"2014-07-07T19:57:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T23:57:17","slug":"day-83-pa-325-shikellimy-trail-to-pa-443","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/happytrails\/?p=802","title":{"rendered":"Day 83 – PA 325 (Shikellimy Trail) to PA 443"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we resumed hiking outside of\u00a0Duncannon, where we got off the trail last week when Trippy got hit by the Lyme truck. We took the Shikellimy Trail back up to the trail from off of PA 325. Pretty much within a mile or two of getting on the trail, we saw a fairly large black bear. I couldn’t get any good pictures unfortunately, but it wasn’t overly afraid of us and just kind of moseyed along. That was the first one we’ve seen on the AT in PA.<\/p>\n

This section is definitely one of our favorite sections in PA. It’s not as\u00a0rocky as a lot of other nearby sections and it has a lot of nice forests to amble through. We section hiked this area last year.<\/p>\n

It also has some delicious PA water…<\/p>\n

\"mmm,<\/a>

mmm, fresh cold orange spring water (Is this from mining? Clay? Residual tears of\u00a0Flyers fans?)<\/p><\/div>\n

We also had a number of snake sightings today. The first was a large rattlesnake that was straight chilling by the trail. It did not give a flying crap about us or my papparazzi actions.<\/p>\n

\"Rattlesnake<\/a>

Rattlesnake chillin’<\/p><\/div>\n

The next interesting encounter was a fairly large black snake. It was also chilling on the trail, but decided that the safest place away from obnoxious hikers was up the nearby pine tree.<\/p>\n

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This was pretty cool to watch it climb. I’ve seen them and their\u00a0skins in trees, but have never actually seen one climb up one. It was pretty fast.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day included some pretty easy hiking and a few minor climbs. Tomorrow we continue hiking through this section towards Port Clinton. Thanks to Ma and Pa Heiser for providing slackpack shuttle services! It’s a lot nicer to eat some pizza at the end of a long hike instead of our normal dehydrated gruel.<\/p>\n

Vital stats:<\/strong>
\nMiles hiked today – 18.6 (plus a bonus\u00a0.9 on the Shikellimy Trail)
\nMood – good
\nPhysical state – good
\nSmell – wonderful<\/em>
\nSong stuck in my head – Dammit by Blink 182<\/p>\n

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