Devil's Racecourse Shelter

6/20 ~ Devil's Racecourse Shelter (19.6 miles)

Well, I put in a 20 miler, but not because I wanted to. My original plan was to do 15 to Hemlock Hill Shelter, but didn't work out.

The day started out easy. I saw a Michigan historical marker...in Maryland. I crossed I-70, and the approach to the bridge is surprisingly scenic.

I stopped at 10 miles (Pogo Campsite) to get water and I ran into some characters that gave me the willies. They looked at me like there was something wrong with me, and when I said 'hi', they just glared back at me, again, like there was something wrong with me. After I ate and watered up, I hiked a short distance from the spring, and there they were again, doing what, I couldn't tell. They looked at me like I was intruding. I decided to attempt to put some distance between me and them.

Then I hit the boulder field. Did I mention that it was raining lightly and that I hate wet rocks and that if I slid off the rocks there was poison ivy everywhere waiting to greet me? Yuck. Luckily, Magnolia had warned me about the rocks, so I knew I had 1.5 miles of it ahead and this prevented me from being discouraged about it. It actually wasn't too bad, in my adrenaline fueled state, and the rest of the hike to Hemlock Hill was pretty easy.

I got there, and the shelter was empty. It's also right next to a road, and I figured that the guys I had tried to leave behind were probably heading here, since there really weren't a lot of places to camp (and none legally) between there and here, and, of course, it was raining. It was 5:30 at this point, so that gave them a good 3 hours to get here -- quite possible even at their slow pace. And I knew a few people who were heading for Devil's Racecourse, so I decided to push on the additional 4.5 miles.

These were not a good 4.5 miles to be putting in at the end of a long day, and it was threatening to rain more. At the first power cut, I mistook a jeep road for the trail and hiked up a hill pointlessly. And it was muddy. When I came back down, the trail through the power cut was hard to find because of the lack of blazes. Power cuts tend to have a lot of trails in them -- power company people drive up there and ATV people ride up there and teenagers walk up there and make out or whatever it is they do. At 8:20, I made the last climb up from a road. It was raining harder now. I came to a blue blaze and took it. Unfortunately, It went to a view from Raven Rock, not the shelter. This had invovled a couple of rock scrambles. I'd just expended a good bit of precious, dwindling energy for nothing. I was furious, and I was afraid I'd get stuck somewhere after dark and in pouring rain with no where to put down a tent (this hill was about half rocks and the other half was trees). I decided that if I didn't find the shelter turn off by 8:30, I was turning around, going back down to the road (MD 491), hitching into Smithsburg, MD and going home.

I came to the shelter turn off at 8:28. The guys there (Bristlecone, Peaceful Warrior, Grace's Son, and Russell) made room in the shelter for me, and Bristlecone went out of his way to make me feel safe and secure. Thank goodness I made it in, because as soon as I got under the roof, the skies opened up, and night fell.

The Ridge Runner had tented there last night, and in the morning, he told me that the Hemlock Hill Shelter is a couple hundred feet from a Maryland Ranger's house, and lot of thruhikers don't realize this and pass by the shelter because of the road. Sigh.