Rough day to Peters Mountain
- El
- May 24
- 3 min read
April 30, 2025
Peters Mountain shelter
Mile 1161.2
I had to wait until the post office opened at 8AM to leave Duncannon, because I wanted to mail my old shoes and some unneeded items home. I do still hope that my feet will go back to their normal size eventually, after all. The AT follows High St. through most of the town, so the first half mile or so was sidewalks and neighborhoods.
Eventually, I crossed the Juniata River, and then the Susquehanna—the latter on a narrowish walkway to the side of a major highway.
There were also some train tracks to cross before I reached the woods. Comments online noted that sometimes long trains were stopped here for extended periods of time, blocking the trail entrance, so I was relieved to see empty tracks once I arrived.
Like a lot of towns and shelters, Duncannon is situated in a valley or dip below the ridge. More often than not, so far at least, the beginning of my day’s hike involves climbing a comparatively steep uphill before settling into smaller ups and downs. This was the case today, though the uphill from Duncannon was not boulders and steps like the descent in had been—it was steep, but with switchbacks and steady climbing.
Once I got up to the ridge, there were some boulders and scrambles, including a few places where I couldn’t quite figure out where to go and had to resort to navigating with the app.
I ended up off-trail by a few dozen feet more than once, and it was slow going, but I felt pretty good about the day when I rolled into the first shelter around lunchtime. It was another 7 or so miles to the next one, Peters Mountain; I was tired, but I had plenty of time, and I’d been off trail for a full day. I filled up on water from the spring, and pushed on.
Maybe it was the heat, but I felt really wiped in this second stretch. Still, I was getting on, and the hike was ok. But about 4 miles out of the shelter, I hit a brief uphill with a few sets of boulder stairs. Compared to what I’d done that morning, it should have been no problem. Unfortunately, one of the smaller boulders was not as well-anchored as I’d thought, and it shifted under me. I couldn’t keep my balance, and went over the side, sliding about 10 or 15 feet down an embankment before catching myself on a tree and some fallen branches. I was having trouble levering myself up with the pack on from my position, so I released the pack straps, but then had to really work to keep the pack from sliding down further on its own; I could also now see that some of my gear, including my water, had come out of the outer pockets. It took me a while to locate and retrieve the escaped items, and then to get back up the embankment back to the trail. I sat down on the boulder stairs and took stock. I was more scared than hurt: I’d scraped up one hand, and I could tell that there would be bruises coming, but that seemed like the extent of the damage. It could have been so much worse, but I was shaken.
I slowly continued on to the shelter at Peters Mountain, a nice double-decker right off the trail on the ridge. This would be the first water source of any kind since that shelter 7 miles back. But when I got there, I saw this:
I couldn’t deal with it tonight, I decided. I’d use the last of my water for dinner and breakfast, and make the journey on those steps the next morning. Later on, though, a couple of section hikers rolled in. One of them wanted to watch the Lakers game that night, but had forgotten his earbuds—so I offered him the use of my headphones. He was so grateful that he offered to fill my bottles when he went down to the spring that night. Huzzah!
I was asleep early and deeply. Some thru-hikers came in lateish that night, but I barely registered, and only got to talk to them the next morning as everyone was heading out.
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