Day 17: Saturday June 21

(Susan) Yet another day of road walk except the first part of the day which was technically on a PCR (whatever that is!). We're not sure if this stands for "Pretty Country Road" or "Pretty Crummy Road" (since the road surface, width and condition vary widely)--but it's some numbering system (i.e. we went from PCR 7/33 to PCR 3/12). The prc we camped on last night started out as a narrow gravel road next to a farm field--but then turned into an active stream bed just before heading into the woods where we camped last night.

We got to the outskirts of Albright and had no luck trying to get a hitch into Kingwood to resupply--so we walked the 3+ miles into town on the side of fairly busy secondary highways. It was nerve wracking at times. We had lunch at the pizza hut, resupplied at Food Town, and paid the parent of a group of cheerleaders (fund raising by washing cars) $15 to drive us back to Albright. They were raising money for new pompoms - seriously. It was an expensive taxi ride, but we considered it well worth it given how hot it was and how harrowing the road walk was into town. From just beyond Muddy Creek, the trail had been rerouted because a timber company apparently retracted right-of-way through their land. We were told this was because they were afraid hikers would mess with their equipment. (I know that's always high on my list!) So instead of skirting the mountain on rail grade trail near the creek, the reroute took us up over the mountain on mostly gravel roads. It was hot and uneventful. It was not until late in the day that we could match our trail guide to our current location and we are guessing that the reroute may have cut out 5 miles. On the yo-yo we may try to hike the old route since an Albright campground owner (Teter's Campground) told us hikers were still going through there with no repercussion. We are camped above a creek in the only area we could find that is not Posted. However, I'm sure we on privately owned land so we're trying to be as stealth as possible even though we are probably only 100 feet from the road. There are a fair number of vehicles going up and down the road and every time one slows down I get paranoid we're going to get spotted and kicked out. Can't wait for dark!