On Saturday, Tod (trail name “Birch”!) and I left the gravel parking lot of PA 183 to hit the trail for Port Clinton. We backpacked and had a pretty heavy load. The Appalachian Trail at 183 starts on the ridge so we had the benefit of having a pretty level hike. Once again we were prepared for hunters by wearing ugly orange clothing. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before we met a hunter carrying a big firearm on the trail.

As the hunting heated up, the temperature cooled down. Significantly. This past weekend was cold! Hiking was not a problem. We certainly generated enough heat as we hiked on the rocky but easy trail. Amazingly, we ran into the father and two kids that we saw at the shelter last weekend. This time, they traveled South. Otherwise, there were very few people on the trail.

By 3 pm we arrived at Eagle Mountain Shelter. A man from Reading, Sam, and his two girls were camping out at the shelter. They had a robust fire going and this gave us a chance to hang out with them, warm up, and make a delicious cup of pumpkin spiced latte.

We came prepared for the weather and had winter clothing. We used our new Seatosummit collapsible cooking pot to make a hearty amount of spaghetti with chicken and four cheese sauce. Am I a gourmet or what?!?

There wasn’t much to do except freeze so Birch and I climbed into the tent early. I woke up to frost on my eyeglasses and we both strategized to figure out what to do next. Coffee!

The trail north from Eagle Mountain started pretty easy but after reaching a beautiful vista it soon turned rocky. You know the story. I am NOT going to write about rocks again! Instead, I’ll say that the trail this weekend was stunningly beautiful. The bed of red and yellow leaves on the floor of the forest made the hike incredibly enjoyable. The beauty of the trees inspired us so that we now finally have trail names.

The last part of this hike made us ready to reach the car. Down, down, down! My knees were not happy! Ten minutes off the trail it began to rain. Our timing was perfect and so was the hike.