Trail Letter 10: 5/15

23.1 halfway! miles today. After about 2 miles, we hit the actual halfway point for the entire Trail — at 1,088 miles. Shortly after this, we encountered the Pine Grove Furnace State Park’s general store, where hikers participate in the “1/2 Gallon Challenge” — a feat that involves eating a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. It just so happened that the General Store is only open on weekends (until Memorial Day) but our destination for the day was a town… in which a grocery store resides.

War Paint hiked with us a good portion of the day — including a section where I disregarded a detour sign so we had to ford a fairly deep river — my deepest ford yet. Clouds threatened rain all day but ended up only providing us shade and cooler temps. War Paint finished his 1/2 Gallon Challenge at a General Store about halfway through the day — on one hour, ten minutes with mint chocolate chip.

In town there is a bulletin board with hiker information, and one posting offers free camping or use of a small playhouse in the back yard. CrazyLegs and I tromped to the house and met the owners, then unpacked in this shed-thing that is probably from Tiny Town… it’s pretty funny actually.

But then we walked to the grocer where I nervously purchased my 1/2 gallon of “Homemade Vanilla” — a 2300+ calorie, 46 grams protein, 200% cholesterol dairy explosion.. after 42 minutes in the alley beside the store, I emerged victorious — and not sick! CrazyLegs ate his in 32 minutes, but Trill from AUontheAT ate a WHOLE GALLON in 43 minutes, and the record is like 4 minutes and some seconds. either way, many hikers couldn’t finish, so we were proud of our achievement. Time to sleep this numb tongue off…