My Trails

7/19/12 – 1319 miles
I left Delaware Water Gap yesterday just before noon and walked about two miles through town, across the Delaware river, and entered the State of New Jersey. It seems unreal that I’m in my eighth state. Past thruhikers tell us that the state lines fall quickly for awhile and then we hit Maine, over 300 miles of rugged wilderness.

I hiked only 11 miles to a place called the Mohican Outdoor Center and decided to stay in the bunk house. A front was quickly approaching and the forecast was for severe thunderstorms in the night. As it turned out, we only had brief rain before dark and the rest of the night was clear. It felt like I had wasted money by staying in the lodge, but it was a great time with good people.

I was up early and hiked out before anyone else was awake. It rained for a while but at least the oppressive heat is gone. The rocks are starting to let up a little, too. We still have sections of jagged rocks but we are starting to see some dirt once in a while.

The rain makes the trail slippery and I took my time over the mountain tops. A couple of times I did some skating down the rock face of one particular bouldered slope. Eventually, I covered 21 miles and made it to Gren Anderson Shelter where I’m tented for the night. It looks like I will sleep to the sound of more rain on my roof tonight.

7/17/12 – 1287 miles
Today was a zero day. I’m here in Delaware Water Gap waiting for the worst of the heat to pass. There are a lot of hikers in town and many are moving out tomorrow, creating a bubble that keeps growing as we move north. I think everyone is finding a place in the hiker community, joining other hikers with the same interests and pace, hanging around with people whose personality we like, moving as a group but individually as well.

My break has allowed some of the hikers behind to catch up. I met up with Kleenex, Nooga, and Bandana – hiking for the past three hundred miles a couple of days behind me – and had breakfast and lunch with them. Nooga, Bandana, and I even shuttled over to Strausburg to see the new Spiderman movie.

Tomorrow I will make a short hike up to a place called the Mohican Outdoor Center and camp there. The heat is supposed to break after that and I plan on making some good miles – no zeros for awhile – through NJ and NY.

7/16/12 – 1281 miles
The heat is back. The forecast for the next few days is filled with words like: heat warning, dangerous heat index, record temperature, and high humidity. As a hiker, I pay close attention to the weather. It’s not fun to run out of water on a blistering long section, or find youtself trapped on a high ridge with a violent thunderstorm approaching.

I’ve cut down on my daily mileage over the past few days. The rocks in PA – except for some of the younger hikers – slow everyone down. If you try to go fast, you end up with sore ankles and bruised feet. This was one shelter journal entry made in PA: “Attention Lehigh Gap trail maintainers. One of your rocks has fallen flat on the ground. Could you please send someone out to stand it back on edge?”

I must not be sleeping well. I stopped for lunch at a small campsite halfway between my start and destination, ate two sandwiches, and sat down by a nice shade tree. The next thing I knew a half hour had gone by. It’s the first time I have stopped for lunch and fallen asleep. It felt kind of nice actually.

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.