Rene's nefarious plan to get me to finish the M-DT blog having met with success, she cordially presented me with an early Christmas present - maps and a trail guide for the Horse-shoe trail. It appears that our hiking days are not ending, but starting anew, so I guess I will need to subtitle this blog somewhat differently. Previously "Section hiking the Mason-Dixon Trail" will now be "Hiking the mid-Atlantic" or something along those lines. Naturally, she has the first leg thoroughly researched, and we depart tomorrow for our new adventure.
The Horse-shoe trail is a 140-mile equestrian and hiking path that runs from Valley Forge west to the Appalachian Trail at Stoney Mountain. The official trail dates from 1935, but portions date back to trails that connected the various furnaces, iron forges and charcoal forests in this part of Pennsylvania as far back as the 18th century. We've tracked down a few scattered blog and forum entries hoping to get a little insight on the hike, and the best we can tell is that we'll see some road walking early, becoming a bit more rugged hiking as one heads west. A long-distance runner completed the entire trail in 30-some hours, noting the difficulty of running on shoulder-less roads (walking ain't much better, let me tell ya), finding blazes that marked the way in strategic locations (yup, we hear ya on that one), and the inevitable scourge of pointy little Pennsylvania rocks hiding under a bed of slick leaves (ditto). Another blogger described his first four miles, filled with hills and houses and pleasant enough until we get to the part where he had to take evasive action to avoid a big, aggressive dog intent on mayhem (why is this starting to sound all-too familiar).
So the plan calls for our now well-honed strategy: take advantage of nice weather, find some open weekends and holidays here and there, try to make about 10-15 miles each day we hike, avoid hunting days, and get it done before hot weather, bugs and storms arrive in the spring. So we're looking at maybe two weeks of hiking to reach the AT again by May. Can't wait to get started!
Some links:
Horse-shoe Trail Conservancy
Horse-shoe Trail long-distance run
A few words about the trail from a casual hiker family
The first four miles: one guy's day hike (warning: potentially offensive content)
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