Hello everyone 💕💕 hope you’re all enjoying your summers! We are not! PA has truly been a challenge in every way, from extreme heat warnings to the never ending rocks, we’ve been in the trenches. This state has seen blood, some tears, and a LOT of sweat. But of course with the bad comes some good, so let’s get into it.
ROCKSYLVANIA!!! GRRR
PA is not only the third longest state on the trail spanning a whopping 230 miles behind VA and Maine, it is also the rockiest state to hike through, earning its nickname ‘rocksylvania’. There is no way to describe how truly horrible it is to hike over hundreds of miles of rocks other than comparing this to walking over slippery legos over and over again.
Hikers up and down the trail trade tails of rocksylvania, warning current hikers about the horrors that will inevitably occur. This is the state that takes many people of trail due to injury, overall body fatigue, or simply losing the mental battle of hiking through this terrible state. There’s been many horror stories about broken legs and arms as a result of all of the rocks. We’ve been pushing through, but not without some serious ankle pain and tendinitis! We also got unlucky in our timing here because we hit the toughest part of PA in the heat wave. Hiking in a heat index of 109° is NO JOKE. And to think we started in Georgia with temps as low as 14°!
How are we still having fun?!
Thankfully Saucy does a good job of keeping spirits high even in the worst of times. We’ve been prioritizing our side quests which have helped us stay sane. We ventured to Hershey Park, spent a night in a cabin with friends, lots of time in town for World Cup games, and even went to a small town movie theater. Of course we also made some epic musics videos along the way which we may have to take to our grave. We’ve been enjoying our nightly family dinners where we reflect on the day and find small joys through ‘high low buffalo’ which helps us enjoy the positives while still acknowledging the suck.
Meet the Brewbs!
As some of you may know, a huge draw for us to the AT was the community. People talk about making life long friends out here that really shape your experience and we’ve been lucky enough to be hiking with some pretty awesome folks who have shown us how friends into family. You’ll recognize Cold Plunge, Tissy, and Snowman from previous posts who have now become the Brewbs! Long story short, Saucy has declared our final brain cell to be an animated Blueberry. The more we hike around these people the more our brains have all become the same and we’ve almost formed our own language, that being said we started calling our selves the drinking blueberry’s, which quickly became the Brewbs.
We’ve even started celebrating holidays with them which have so far included Christmas where we did dollar store secret Santa, and of course the Fourth of July.
SNOWMAN: a 30 year old from Wisconsin, who worked as a software engineer. He unfortunately got Lyme Disease a few days ago (on only his second tick bite) but has been a trooper!
TISSY: a 23 year old recent graduate of George Mason who is from NOVA and plans to teach music! We made her laugh so hard that she peed her pants!
COLD PLUNGE: a 26 year old welder from Roanoke, VA. He’s also from VA but calls us Yankees and doesn’t have health insurance!
Tissy made Cold Plunge a rock version of himself for Christmas! Chameleon got a tiara, Snowman got a stress ball, Ladybug got noice putty that makes fart noises, and Tissy got Sudafed. Truly a wonderful Christmas.
WE MADE IT OUT OF PA!!
We cannot express how exciting it was to finally make it out of Pennsylvania. This state tested us physically but more so mentally in a way we weren’t expecting. That being said, we’re proud of ourselves for getting through it, even if we literally crawled out of PA.
Visitors <3
Shout out to Nana (Chameleons aunt) for rescuing us from the heat for a night of R&R in a hotel room, and joining us for a few miles on trail after slack packing the Brewbs the day before.
One of our best friends from high school visited for four days and we had a lovely time sharing the trail with her while getting to catch up. We love you Haylee!
We also got lucky with two visits from one of our best trail friends, Carbon. He got off trail in Harper’s Ferry after finishing his flip flop hike so having him come back to visit meant a lot.
Okay that’s all! Bye PA we hate you but we love everything else about the trail 🦎🐞💖
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