My Trails

7/14/12 – 1267 miles
It was a tough 15 miles today. With all the rocks on the trail, my feet felt like I had walked 20 miles by the end of the day. We were flush with water at the start. Most everyone was carrying at least 3 liters of water across a barren stretch of contaminated hillside. Palmerton, you see, once contained the worlds largest zinc factory, employing a large percentage of the surrounding population. Destructive smelting practices left the nearby hills and river contaminated with arsenic and lead. In 1980, the newly formed EPA realized what a disaster the plant had inflicted upon the environment and promptly shut it down. Even today a lot of the hillside is barren of vegetation.

The climb up from Palmerton was steep and somewhat of a rock scramble, reminding a couple of previous thruhikers in our group of what we will face in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The morning was cool, however, so we reached the summit and traversed the long open ridge without loosing too much water to perspiration. Above the town we had clear views of the abandoned zinc plant and leftover piles of slag.There were many ripe berries along the trail but no one wanted to eat them – we were all afraid they may be contaminated.

Eventually the trail led back into forested terrain and across the famous PA rocks. My feet were sore by the time I reached Leroy Smith Shelter, walked half a mile down to get water, and set up my tent. Tomorrow I will do an easy day to the next shelter.

7/13/12 – 1252 miles
The trail led an easy 7 miles into Palmerton, PA, a nice but sad little town along the Lehigh River. I’ll touch briefly on the story of Palmerton in the next post, but on this day we were busy with town chores and meeting several new hikers.

The neat thing about Palmerton is that you get to sleep in the jail. I guess way back in earlier times, the building that now serves as hostel for thruhikers used to be a jail. It has since been remodeled and the basement turned onto a dormitory with bunk beds for hikers. They give thruhikers a place to stay and a shower all for free. It turned into a fun time in town as more hikers showed up throughout the day. By bedtime there were about 15 hikers all sharing the basement hostel. When you get a group of thruhikers all together, all sharing the same adventure, living the same dream, going through the same hardships of daily hiking, the common bond forms instant friendships.

It seems like I’ve fallen into a different group of hikers in the last couple of weeks. When several people hike about the same pace, meet up at the same place each night, and go into the same towns to resupply, we call the group a bubble. I’m in a bubble now. It’s good to have other thruhikers around.

7/12/12 – 1244 miles
One thing about the trail in the north is that you go by more towns. Sometimes the AT goes near a restaurant, and for a hungry hiker, it’s hard to pass them up. I was hiking with SimpleC and his girlfriend when we passed by Blue Mountain Summit Restaurant & BB, an expensive but nice establishment just outside Andreas PA, and decided to stop in for lunch. Needless to say, it was two hours later when I finally dragged my stuffed body back to the trail to finish the days hike.

With a bloated stomach and extra water, I proceeded to hike through a particularly difficult section called the Knife Edge. Pennsylvania rocks ate tough anyway but the Knife Edge lived up to it’s name. Jagged boulders jutting at sharp angles lined the ridge for maybe a quarter mile, and naturally the white blazes led up along the very top of the rocks.

I had filled up on water at the previous spring because of a long dry stretch, and the heaviness of my pack left me with no balance across the boulder field. And my trekking poles were useless on the steep face of the rock. It took me a long time to negotiate the Knife Edge and I hope there is no more like it.

7/11/12 – 1211 miles
I’m taking a zero day here in Port Clinton, PA. The rocks in northern PA. are very numerous and stick up at odd angles, giving the knees and ankles a workout. These mid-atlantic states are where we can make good mileage – building up a head-start into the mountains of New England where the terrain will cut our progress down to a crawl – but I felt I needed a day off so I took it.

A few nights ago, I was camped with a German guy named Sonic. At about 10 pm he asked me if I was awake. I said I was. He had left his new camp shoes at the shelter 8 miles back and had to return to get them. I let him borrow my headlamp because his wasn’t very bright, and he hiked back through the night – along an extremely rocky section – to retrieve his camp shoes. I hope I never have to do that.

The shelter I’m using is a one-person, free-standing, two-piece tent made by Big Agnes. I started out with a one-piece tarp tent that was very light but had a couple flaws. For one thing, every time it rained you would get a mist from the condensation as the drops hit the nylon. I never could get used to that. And my tarp tent took up more room to set up. Good tent sites are something of a premium out here and the one-person tent fits where my other tent didn’t.

I can usually get everything inside my tent at night. I usually hang my food from a tree in a bear bag, and my extra clothes make a pillow for my head. The tent has a small vestibule but big enough to cover my pack.

7/7/12 – 1175 miles
At present I’m not carrying many extra clothes. In warm weather, all you need is two shirts and two pairs of shorts. One pair I always keep clean so that I have something clean to put on in town after I take a shower. I have three pairs of socks that I rotate after two days on each. Two pair of underwear (eww! ). I keep my puffy jacket just in case there is a cold snap.

For rain gear I’m trying out an emergency poncho. Anything else is too hot. I do use a pack cover even though the rain will eventually enter the pack in an all day soaker.

For a sleeping bag I try to use the lightest material that will keep me warm. Some hikers are using a light flannel blanket now but I have a light bag that weights only one pound. Sometimes I just sleep on top of it if it is warm weather.

My air mattress is a Neo-Air Extreme, one of the lightest (and most expensive) blow-up sleeping pads made. Some of the first Neo-Airs were noisy and puncture prone, but I’ve had good luck with this one. It gets used every night I’m on the trail.

I will tell about my shelter system next.