Day 78 – The 4 State Challenge on a Crocodile

I woke up at 11:30 pm and the alarm went off. Maybe I slept 3 hours, I’m not sure. Today I’m attempting the Four State Challenge! Where you walk from Virginia through West Virginia, Maryland and then into Pennsylvania. 44.5 miles in a single day. Not content with just doing that, I’m going to try it with a Croc on my left foot since my heel hasn’t healed yet. Is it potentially silly to try after some of my recent foot problems? Maybe. But I’m a sucker for challenges and this one has been on my AT wish list ever since I found out about it.

And so it begins…

A few minutes after midnight, Big Stick and I, with headlamps on, took pictures at the West Virginia-Virginia border marker and began. This marked the completion of Virginia for us.

The longest state on the Appalachian Trail, by far. The first half mile was pretty rocky, but after that the trail moderated. Mainly in the first couple of miles as we descended to Harpers Ferry. Once we arrived at Harpers Ferry, we left some of our unnecessary supplies for the day at our town house and continued on our way. After crossing the river leaving Harpers Ferry we entered Maryland, the sixth state on the way. This also means I can mark West Virginia as completed! 5 states completed! The next few kilometers were very easy as we walked along a flat path between an old canal and the river, giving us the boost we needed for the day. After that we began our biggest climb of the day, a little over a thousand feet in 2.5 miles.

The climb went quite well, with its undulating curves and the trail in good condition. Finally, towards the top it became quite difficult and tedious. Enough so that when I let my mind wander for a moment I tripped and fell flat on my face, breaking the fall with my right hand. Aside from a growing resentment towards the rocks, the main consequence of the fall was just a few scratches on my hand. Pretty minor things. Starting again a little slower and more carefully, I press on. With the headlamp on, I continued in the company of Blueberry Turtle, Big Stick and Queso. The rocks continued for some time but eventually gave way to smoother terrain. And it actually stayed pretty flat all the way to Gathland State Park, where we took our first formal break of the day. This was about 13 miles and we filled up on drinking water and took a 15 minute snack break. As we sat for a while, we realized how cool the morning had become and soon wanted to get moving again to warm up. So we passed through the arch and continued on our way.

Washington Monument?!

Our next planned stop was another 9 miles or so to Washington Monument Park in Maryland. The first part stretch started with a climb that went pretty well before slowly transitioning into a rocky descent. We continue advancing in the kilometers, alternating the pole position. Around this time it was my turn. This is not an ideal position to be in early in the morning. As you become the «Silk Jacket», you clean the cobwebs that the spiders put along the path during the night. This seems like a minor detail, but it can become a real annoyance. For example, when I was in the last position, I would get covered in a spider web once every 5 minutes or so. When I moved to the front position, I was getting several cobwebs on my face every minute, which wasn’t great. But as with all things, this too shall pass, and so shall the miles. We reached the halfway point shortly after arriving at Washington Monument Park. There we filled up with water again and took a break. I didn’t set a timer for this break and it actually reflected that we took almost an hour break, which was not according to our plan. But I think it was necessary since we all sat for a while and theoretically ate our lunches, right at 9 am. I also took the opportunity to drink a liter of electrolytes to help keep dehydration at bay. Especially important because the sun was shining and warming the day. At this point, we were averaging over 2.5 miles per hour with our breaks included, which was better than we had planned. But there was quite a bit of fear that we would soon start to slow down.

Tire

I continued and as the day progressed until mid-morning we began to see more and more people. Day trippers and even some day trippers. Which contrasted with the first 8 hours of walking, when we didn’t see anyone besides us. Coming out of the break was a little slow, but I slowly warmed up again and felt the calories from the pepperoni and fried foods I was eating for lunch. For the next hour and a half I felt happily energized and covered miles. But as we approached our next break, I was starting to falter and needed to keep snacking to keep up.

I stopped at a small stream to fill up on water as I was running out of water, the heat causing me to burn through water at a fairly rapid rate. Although we didn’t plan it, our entire group ended up stopping there too. Over the next hour I completed the marathon and broke my record for the longest day of hiking on the AT. And then an hour later, as I approached 30 miles, I broke my record for most miles covered in a day.

Delusions

Once again I could feel my energy waning and I loaded up on snacks again. After fueling up a bit, I reached an extremely technical and tedious rock section. It lasted almost an hour with painfully slow progress.

During this time I called my parents and talked to them, which helped pass the time, but now I was really starting to feel the miles. Especially on my left foot, as the Croc did not provide the necessary cushioning or support. I was tired. My feet hurt. I wanted to finish. But I continued. I had another snack to help me keep going, my second to last snack of the day and I still had 10 miles left. Guess I shouldn’t have given 2 of my granola bars to Blueberry Turtle when it was running out earlier… 20 minutes later I felt the surge of energy from the snack, coinciding with Chappell Roan’s Femininomenon, coming through my headphones. It was the perfect combination of stimuli to trigger a spontaneous running attack! I dashed down the path, catching up with Cheese, and turned on the music on the speaker so he could appreciate the phenomenon that was occurring at that moment. After passing, after 50 years I stopped abruptly. On the road there was a little fawn.

Slowly and carefully I approached and surrounded him, while signaling to Cheese of his presence. However, their approach caused the fawn to flee into the woods, which then caused a bit of a commotion, as mom was apparently nearby and started running as well. However, I continued and within 50 feet I had to stop dead again. A copperhead snake was in the road and I was 3 feet away from it… That fawn might have saved me from a bad moment as it made me slow down as I got closer to the snake. Luckily it took off as I approached and I only got a bad image of it as it took off into the brush.

The final Countdown

After that excitement, things calmed down, passing through a couple of meadows until we reached a larger stream at about 38 miles. Here our group regrouped and filled up with water for the final stretch. We set off again, tired and with sore feet. I’ll be honest, I may have blocked out the next 4 miles and I don’t remember much of any note happening. But the last 3 kilometers we grouped up again to finish the day together. We passed through a field of rocks, which slowed our pace and added to our frustration. The verbalizations of how we felt and what we thought about the trail at that moment were strong and colorful. But we finally emerged from the rocks onto a fairly smooth and wide trail. This was the sign that we were approaching PenMar Park! With less than 2 miles left, I prepared my last snack, a broken glass in case of emergency. This, and the knowledge that the suffering would soon end, propelled me toward the park and toward the finish line.

At 6:53 pm, we reached the Mason-Dixon Line sign and entered Pennsylvania, ending our hike after 18 hours, 47 minutes, and 52 seconds and my Garmin said 45.5 miles total for the day. We took some pictures, signed the log book, and right at 7pm, we hit the road to catch a bus back to Harper’s Ferry.

Right around the time I told him we were finishing two days ago when I booked it! We finished the day by grabbing some food and drinks at Sheetz and then arrived at the lodge in Harper’s Ferry, where we quickly showered and went to bed…

I don’t know if there is an FKT (fastest known time) for doing the 4 State Challenge in a Croc, but I claim it. Feel free to correct me if this is not true, until then, it’s mine!

4 State Challenge on a Croc FKT:

Brock «Dobla» Miller – 18:47:52

Statistics for day 78:

44.5 miles

7,346 ascent, 7,143′ descent

Stealth site for PenMar Park

24 DSLC…

Stove use times: 14

Snakes seen on the trail: 12

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