Day 83 Duncannon to Rattling Run

Today's miles 20.2.  AT miles 1164.8

We were ready to get back hiking today, Nigel was feeling much better and I also for catching up on lots of sleep.  Mary kindly picked us up again at 8:30 from our motel and dropped us back beside the south end of the Susquehanna River bridge, the last part of the trail we'd hiked to yesterday morning.  We were obviously the first to walk over the huge Clark's Ferry Bridge this morning as we had cobweb clearance to do, Nigel used his walking pole.  We were also constantly dive bombed by what looked like a hawk as we were crossing the bridge, it must have had a nest somewhere on the bridge rafters.

After the bridge it was a steady climb up to a long thirteen mile ridge where there were great views both sides of the Susquehanna River.  We could see down to the long bridge we crossed earlier on a few occasions. The trail was pretty good again today , there were a few more rocky sections though but nothing we've not encountered before.  It was a very hot day today, about 30°C/86°F, the heat slowed us down a bit, 30°C is a heatwave in the UK but normal here, it could get much hotter.  We needed to refill our water at Peter's Mountain shelter after about ten miles.  The shelter's water supply was 0.2 miles away down 300 steep steps, we weren't looking forward to that job in the heat.  Luckily for us some trail angels had done the hard work for us and there were supplies of filled gallon water bottles already at the shelter and we didn't need to tackle the 300 steps in the heat.  We took just what we needed to get us the next six and a half miles to another steam and left the rest for other hikers.

We continued along the ridge which eventually descended down to Clark's Creek where we stopped for a rest.  We refilled our water again, had a snack and aired our feet for a while.   For the first time we also had to wet our caps bandanas to help keep our heads cool.  From the creek we four miles further to go to reach our destination, the first couple of miles went steadily uphill for 1000ft then it levelled out again.  As I was walking a small bird, a Black-and-White Warbler flew in front of me and had a good old bathe in a puddle, it must have needed to cool off, I knew how it felt!  

We stealth camped next to Rattling Run, a small stream on the ridge top.  There are very few shelters on this section of trail or they are very spaced out so there are limited camping options. The trail is on State Game Lands but primitive one night camping is allowed for AT hikers.  It was great to be back in our tent, we missed it after staying four nights in a row in accommodation, it's our little home.