We got a late start but we left Harper's ferry today. It was easy, while walking through town, to start looking around and suddenly realize you had to look for the white blazes! We came across 125 turtles on the towpath. It was a tough walk out of Harpers Ferry.
Before we left we got to see kids on a field trip on a scavenger hunt. I think it’s neat that schools are able to take students to a place with so much history. The kids might not appreciate it yet, but they will when they are older.
While walking out of town we first came up on Jefferson Rock. This is really a pile of rocks on top of each other where Thomas Jefferson once sat, in 1783, and said that “This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic”. The rocks used to be sitting on top of each other without support, but after they began to weather and people started to play with them, supports were built.
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| Jefferson's Rock |
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| One would think that the sign saying "no climbing" would not be necessary! |
Another cool site we walked past was the ruins of the original St. John’s Episcopal church in Harpers Ferry. It was built in 1852 and used as a hospital and barracks during the Civil War. It was interesting to see the church foundation and walls. It made me wonder about the people who used to worship there.
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| St. John's Episcopal Ruins on the trail |
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| Interesting to see how the church was build |
We also walked past the John Brown Fort. What an amazing historical building! This is the only building left of the armory where the abolitionist John Brown led a raid so that he could arm slaves with weapons to fight for their freedom!!! You could also tell that they still have reenactments at the fort. It was open so we looked in. The bars on the windows were so old!
Suddenly, we were walking through town again! There were tiny little shops through the town. I can’t wait to come back and spend more time in town!
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| Harpers Ferry is charming. I can't wait to come back and visit. |
While we were hiking today there was a train going through the mountains. It was cool because we could hear the train whistle echoing through the mountains.
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| Crossing the Potomac river |
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| Cool railroad and foot bridge over the Potomac river |
I cannot stress enough the 125, maybe 130, probably even 140, turtles we saw (Bubbles insists that we can only officially count 107 because that's the number that she counted. She didn't start counting until we walked past a bunch of turtles so I keep teasing her about the number we saw!)
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| At least 13 turtles in this picture! |
It was nice to finally see a switchback. They are a pain because it would be much faster and shorter to just go straight up the mountain (I understand why they are neccessary though!) It's a lot longer walk but there were tons of purple flowers and pink trees. Everywhere we looked you could see something different!
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| Switchbacks! |
We ended the day at the Edward B Garvey Shelter. It is nice at the end of the day to see your last destination sign!
Here is my routine when I get into camp: The first thing I do when I walk into camp is to figure out where I’m going to set up our tent. While I’m looking for a tent site I also look for a bear box or a bear pole. If I don't see a bear box or pole then I look for a tree for our food. Next, the tent goes up, I start to make or prepare food, I find water and filter it, and then start a fire.
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| Sign to Weverton Cliff |
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| Tree down |
I'm going to work on getting my thumb out of pictures and videos!
Day: 17
Miles hiked: 6.9
Total Miles hiked on the trail: 168.1
Bears: 0
Butterfly: 7
Chipmunk: 1
Crawfish: 1
Deer: 20
Really Big Dog: 1
Mouse: 1
Nest of bugs: 1
Skunk: 1
Snail: 1
Squirrels: 11
Turkeys: 4
Turtles: 107
Woodpecker: 1
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