Day 97: Mosquito Attack

Our first climbs of the day got us to the original halfway point of the AT. Becca got to pretend kiss another sculpted Benton McKay. Then it was a nice descent into boiling springs. We hiked along the perfectly clear waters of the pond formed by the giant gushing stream. At the north end you can see the water coming out of the ground with a lot of force. Right at the spring we had an awesome breakfast to prepare for the long day.

Fortunately the hike ahead was misty flat. Unfortunately it was also boring. We hiked next to and through several corn fields. At one road crossing a van slowly rolled by us. Possible drive by in pastoral PA? Nope. Just a family mini van and a startled dad warning us of a bear he just saw enter the corn. Greeeeeaaat. We have to now walk down the middle of a cornfield with 8ft stalks with at least one bear known to be inside. That has to be the worst place to expect a bear to come running out at you. There would be hardly any warning and the bear which normally would see a human and run away now won't be able to see us. Well we took this moment to drink water and look at our book. Meanwhile a hiker named swass entered the field and we passed on the warning. While we looked at our guide, swass yelled at us and said the bear ran across the path just 20 ft in front of him. All clear then. Thanks swass.

The rest of the hike was weird, passing through farms, over a highway several times, and finally through a mosquito infested swamp. At the end of the swamp we walked by a parking lot where 2014 thru-hiker, Irish, was doing trail magic. It was perfectly timed and we rested up for the climb out of the valley.

The climb was okay and we passed on getting water because my guide said there was a stream and campsite on the other side of this hill. All we found was even more mosquitoes in the stale bog of a forest and a dry streambed. Oops. Bad choice skipping the water. We had barely any left in our packs, but we were fine.

Also, today I saw a couple spots like the picture below where the forest floor was just covered with chantrelles.  What is going on with the locals? Do they not know about mushrooms?