This was a great hike ~7.5 miles one way from Pine Grove Furnace State Park to James Fry Shelter. Parking is plentiful at Pine Grove Furnace. To park overnight, you need to fill out a pass which is available in the plastic box next to the front door of the office. The pass goes in the mail slot after you fill it out. Parking is just down the hill and there is a restroom right there where the Appalachian Trail crosses the parking lot. Very nice! There was far more snow up on the ridge than at the parking lot and much more than the zero snow in southern MD. Some of the drifts over the rocks in one short section were knee deep. Most of the trail had already been broken by a couple other hikers and some cross country skiers. On average, the snow was around 10-12” deep. This would be an easy section in clear weather, there is not much elevation change and the trail is not very rough. Water at the shelter must be unreliable based on my personal observations and some graffiti on the shelter blue blaze right at the AT. The shelter was nice and the surrounding campsites also looked nice. The privy is super awesome. There is a bear box for food behind the shelter. I did hike in wet socks the next day to save my dry ones. It was not that bad. What I did not like was frozen shoes. I need to learn better technique for dealing with this. Oh, and wool socks burn – don’t ask me how I know. ☹
