Peters Mtn/AT Backpacking Trip

What a great weekend for backpacking. Of course, when we planned this trip, after our January trip, there was no way to know that the weather was going to be so nice. February had me thinking that we might be hiking with snow on the ground.

Kyler, Brian B., Mike M. Kyle F. and I began this trip off of Route 225, north of Dauphin, PA. The temps were in the low 70s, and the parking lot was full when we arrived. This was a good indication that we were not going to be able to get the shelter, or at least have the shelter to ourselves.

We got on the trail around noon, and headed east along Peters Mountain. This was the first time I have ever hiked this section of the AT as we usually hike and camp in the Rausch gap area. The trail follows the spine of Peters Mountain and affords great views its entire length. The views on either side of the mountain, however, are different: to the north, there is much more development and farm lands, to the south, more mountains.

This was Kyler's second backpacking trip, and first of the season. We moved at his pace, which allowed for more exploration. We stopped at numerous rock outcroppings to climb, crawl, and to generally enjoy the views they afforded. Normally, I would have blown past most of the outcroppings to get into camp. This was a much more relaxing, and enlightening way to hike. The nicest of the outcroppings was, I believe, Shikellamy Rocks. When we arrived, a boy scout troop was preparing to rappel. We took a break here and climbed below the face, then scrambled around the side. From here it was a half mile to the shelter, so we saddled up and proceeded to camp.

As expected the shelter was taken, but we found a nice spot about a hundred yards to the east of the shelter to set up our tents. I heard that water was a problem at this site; so many people said it was a long way down the side of the mountain to get to the spring. While it was a little bit of a hike, I didn't find it to be all that bad, maybe a 15 minute round trip.

Once camp was set up, and water was gathered, we sat around and relished the first day of spring. Afterwards, we threw Frisbee, or rather a fun gripper flyer. The fun gripper flyer is a nice piece of gear to pack when you have kids. It's lightweight and easy to throw.

We made a little fire to cook some hot dogs, and had supper around 6:30. We kept the fire going and enjoyed sitting around shooting the breeze into the night. The temps hovered in the low 60s and it was very pleasant. Kyler conked out around 8:00, and later when I went to bed, he never woke up when I got into the tent. He was tired from a day in the outdoors.

The next morning we got up around 7:00, and after a quick breakfast and coffee and hot chocolate, we struck camp, and got back on the trail. We got back to the parking lot around 10:00, and decided to head to the Colonial Park Diner for breakfast. After breakfast, we said our goodbyes, and now look forward to seeing each other again later in the spring either in the Shenandoah National Park, or paddling down the Schuylkill for the Blue Monkey Sojourn.