Day 84 Rattling Run to 501 Shelter

Today's miles 24.8.  AT miles 1189.6

After yesterday's heat, today was thankfully a much cooler, cloudy day, the perfect temperature for walking.  We were up early as we had a big mileage day planned so started hiking at 7:05.  The first eight miles of trail were pretty good again, not many rocks and on a very gradual downhill towards Rausch Gap.  There was a sign saying that Rausch Gap used to be a big coal mining community in the 1800's and we could see remains of this in the woods.  Just near the gap we saw what we thought was a sloth but on checking our animal guide it was actually a very sad looking Common Porcupine.  Most of its barbed quills were missing from its back and it was moving very slothfully, it must have been in a battle with something.  Also just after the gap we passed a sign to a cemetery, we wouldn't like to camp near there, very spooky. 

We had a few road crossings both under and across, crossed a lovely old iron bridge at Swatara Gap and a fallen tree made a great bridge crossing a stream at one point.  There were quite a few areas of forest completely covered in young fern leaves and we been seeing lots of a type of plant grow over the last few weeks in the forest that we called an 'umbrella' plant.  It is now flowering so we can identify it, it's actually Mayapple.  There's lots of interesting and pretty flowers and trees to see at the moment on the trail.

We also walked over the first proper rock field since hitting Pennsylvania.  It lasted all of a few minutes.  We were expecting most of Pennsylvania to be rock field from what we'd heard.  So far most paths have been pretty smooth with occasional rocky sections. Northern Pennsylvania is supposed to be rockier so we'll find out in the next few days. 

After twenty miles we stopped at William Penn Shelter for a proper sit down break for half an hour. We'd only really stopped for pee breaks, photos etc up until then, snacking as we walked.  We then had just four miles to go to get to 501 shelter, our camp spot for tonight.  The shelter itself is nice, four sided for a change a bit like a large garden shed, more like a bunk house with a caretaker house next door. It has a port-a-loo rather than a privy and solar shower (not enough sun today to warm that up), we're camping as usual though nearby.