FKT: Cal Swartzentruber - PA Appalachian Trail (PA) - 2023-09-29

Day 1: 54.6 miles
I started at the state line sign on the bridge over the Delaware at about 5am on 9/25/23. It was pouring rain. I had taken two zeros and a nero in Delaware Water Gap to wait out tropical storm Ophelia, but the storm was taking longer to play out than had originally been forecasted. It rained pretty heavily for the first few hours. The trail was slick, and in some places I was walking through a temporary creek. After a few hours of walking, the pouring rain turned to scattered showers, which lasted into the afternoon. I was able to keep to a 3 mile/hour pace until Lehigh Gap, which was quite slick after the rain. Thankfully by that point in the day the rain had mostly gone away, but maneuvering through the gap was slow going nonetheless. I carried three liters of water from the start, which lasted me until the piped spring before George W. Outerbridge Shelter, where I filled up on water for the first time and took a brief sit. The sun started to set a little after I got moving again. While it was no longer raining, I was walking through a cloud most of the night. Visibility was very low with my headlamp reflecting off the water droplets in the air, and the rocks were still incredibly slick. I had wanted to try to push to 60 miles for the first day while I was still fresh, but after slowly maneuvering over the boulder fields at Bake Oven Knob and Bear Rocks in the dark, I decided it was about time to call it for the night. I got to Allentown Hiking Club Shelter and slept there in the shelter for about 4 hours.

Day 2: 50.3 miles
I took way longer in camp than I should have; It took a lot of will power to leave the shelter in the morning. Thankfully there were a lot of cruisy miles in the first half of the day, particularly the dirt road walks in the 10 miles after Hawk Mountain Road. It was misty most of the morning and then started to rain off-and-on again in the late morning and afternoon. I was feeling really good until the climb out of Port Clinton. Day two fatigue really hit me at that point, but I was able to keep a steady pace. I got a second wind later in the afternoon, as I usually do. It started to get dark after crossing PA Route 183. It was still pretty misty, so visibility was low. I was aiming for the 110 mile mark before calling it for the evening, but my energy levels and pace crashed around 11pm, and scrambling over rocks in the dark was pretty slow going. I ended up stopping at the junction to the William Penn Shelter and cowboy camping under some low branches there. I was a bit worried I would get rained on in the night, but I did not have the energy to set up my tarp. I got 3.5-4 hours of sleep that night.

Day 3: 52.9 miles
The stretch between Swatara Gap and Clark’s Valley Road was really cruisy, and I was able to maintain a decent pace despite the fatigue. This is where my feet started to give me some trouble. They had been wet most of the time to that point, and I hadn’t been able to stop to air them out except at night. The last time I did an FKT like this I got stress fractures in both feet, so I was worried about that happening again. I stopped for about 20 minutes to eat a snack and air them out. My feet had begun to swell, and one of my toes had turned purple from being stubbed too many times. It had also started to become difficult to eat solid food while walking. Any time I stopped for a moment, I would try to get down as much food as possible because it was so much easier to eat when not moving. It got dark as I was descending into Duncannon, and lack of sleep was really starting to affect me. The Duncannon road walk was an amazing change of pace from the rocky trail, but the climb out of Duncannon is where my body gave up. At the top of that climb I had to stop to dry heave, which would happen a couple more times during the effort. My body had very little left to give, so from that point on it was all mental. I just tried to keep putting one foot in front of the other the rest of that night, regardless of pace. Luckily, this night was very clear, so there weren't visibility issues like the previous two nights. I stopped at the campsite just before Darlington Shelter. I cowboy camped there and got about 2 hours of sleep.

Day 4: 72 miles

I started this morning at 4am. My goal at the time was still to finish in under 4 days, meaning I had 25 hours to make the last 72 miles. I was progressing on pace through the cruisy Cumberland Valley, but I was extremely tired. I started to crash around Center Point Knob and the few miles thereafter. The trail was pretty easy compared to all I had been through up to that point, but I had very little left to give to this effort. Later in the afternoon I got my second wind, and I started running at the dirt road walk into Pine Grove Furnace State Park. I tried to run as much as possible over the next few miles, knowing that I would probably crash again once it got dark. By the time it got dark I still had about 30 miles left, meaning I would have to move at a 3 mile/hour pace through the night to finish at 5am the next morning and achieve a sub-4 day time. The trail was very easy, but unfortunately the mist came back, so visibility was low. Much of this night is a blur for me. At some point it started raining. Despite my best efforts to keep the pace up, I was starting to slip mentally. It became nearly impossible for me to maintain a 3 mile/hour pace, and at a certain point I knew it wouldn't be possible to finish before 5am. I was so incredibly tired at this point. On Rocky Mountain, after passing through Caledonia State Park, My mind gave out and I crashed in the middle of the trail and slept for a few minutes in the rain. I woke up in a semi-dream state. I know that I crashed to sleep a couple more times in those next few miles, but I couldn't tell you exactly where or for exactly how long. I don't believe I ever stopped for more than 20 minutes. When the sun started to come up, I regained some lucidity. The end was in sight. I finally made it to the Mason-Dixon Line at 7:49am on 9/29/23.