Palmerton PA

I began this leg of my hike in Greenwood Lake, NY. My mom and I drove down and camped in one of the many overnight parking areas for the AT. We woke up late and after eating a great breakfast of eggs, tomato and bread I headed on my way. It was a nice day, sunny and not too warm. I did 6 relatively challenging miles;a lot of rock hopping along ridge lines. I kept noticing that every decent would have been easier as a ascent and every ascent easier as a decent. I was beginning to think that the person responsible for marking the trail was a sadist with a grudge against southbound hikers. An assumption that was all but confirmed by the last decent of the day for which I had to take off my pack and and lower it down the side of the cliff with my bear bag rope. After patting myself of on the back for my ingenuity I walked a little farther and made camp.

In the process of making dinner I managed to have my dinner explode allover my hands (burning the shit out of them) pants and boots forcing me to use a few wet wipes to clean up what I could and hang the rest of my dirty clothes with my bear bag until I could wash them properly.

I called it a night. crawling into my tent my hands still burning and feeling a bit low. I listened to my Ipod and let Bill Bryson read to me about Australia. I awoke to the sound of gunshots. The hunters were out early and in full force.

I packed up in a light rain and crossed a stream within the first hour of walking; replenishing my water supply. About a mile later I came to what I now refer to as "that fucking cliff". There was a white blaze on what was a nearly sheer cliff with a little slit in it. Think a low relief of Jabba the Hut with his mouth open and a white blaze where his eyes should be. Now I don't know if Jabba's mouth was meant to be a foot hold or a hand hold or what. What I do know is I am not going cliffhanging ala Stallone style with a 40 lb pack on. I tried an alternate route of giant boulders covered in slimy decaying mushrooms and that didn't work either. The thing that worried me was: say I did manage to get into Jabba's Palace without falling into the pit of carkoon what if once up there I found it even more difficult in the thick fog? What if rotting mushrooms covered every surface? What if there was a Rancor up there?

So I said fuck NY/NJ. Well... first I had an emotional meltdown. Then I said fuck NY/NJ. I called my Mom and she helped me find a Bus that would take me from Greenwood Lake To Delaware Water Gap, PA. I bushwhacked out to a road falling several times and eventually sneaking through someones back yard to a road.

I spent the night in a hotel the next day busing it to PA and one more night at a Days Inn getting everything dry again.

Thanksgiving day I hiked the 3.2 miles to Delaware Water Gap and then the other 6 or so to my first shelter. I shared the shelter with two other hikers Rainfly and Checkers. They tried to give me a very pretentious trail name that I refused to accept. We all chatted and slept. I hiked South in the morning and they hiked north.

The rocks here are crazy. The path is like walking on a perpetual stream bed but without the water softened rocks. Instead I picked my way across pointy rocks for hours at a time. I can't really tell you what PA looks like because my eyes never leave the trail.

I am in Palmerton PA today taking a zero day. My knees and ankles need a break and I needed a night indoors. I stayed in a free Hostel last night in the basement of the Borough Hall. I dried out my stuff in the boiler room, ate some Low Mein from a restaurant across the street, and took a shower that more resembled being scoured by a pressure washer(bliss). I was also able to do laundry, after 7 days it was very necessary to clean the sweat out of my clothes.

I resupplied, trading in my normal cracklin oat bran for a some pop tarts from the dollar store. I also switched up my tortillas for some ramen.

I'll try to stay in a sort of boarding room tonight and hike to a shelter just a mile or two up on the trail tomorrow if the weather is still a bit bad. Then I will continue on for 5 days to Port Clinton and 2-3 more to Pine Grove.

I have basically decided to stop when the weather gets too bad to keep going. It is possible that I may decide to leap farther south for a bit if PA gets hit hard. But we'll see. I will just let this hike go the way every day goes: I'll hike till I can't anymore and then I'll stop.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get pictures up. The library hear doesn't have a card reader that works with my camera memory card. I suggest if you really need pics of PA you google them.