Date: 2007-10-07
To: Kirkridge Shelter
Miles today: 6.4
Weather: scattered clouds

mi. 6.4sleep shelterdest. Kirkridge Shelter day 87 Today was one of those nice days. Last night Torque and I looked at the guide book and decided it was either 7 miles or a lot longer. I am planning were I am ending up around water. That would mean a decent 18 or so the next day, and then a 10 or so into Palmerton. They have the jail house hostel I want to stay at. This ment we had a lot of time to kill today. So I slept in as late as I could. Which wasn't that long. Even with staying up to midnight. I was able to head towards the outfitter to get my poles fixed. That turned out pretty well. On one pole I got the middle and bottom section replaced. The spring in the middle was done and the tip was busted. On the other I got the tip replaced. I would have gotten the bottom section replaced but we were having issues getting it in. I didn't end up getting the middle section replaced. They did not have another one. It still works, it is only dented, so I cannot fully collapse it. I'll have to that in a few days at the next one. I did another resupply at a convience store. Not the best and unfortunatly too much candy, again, but it will hold me over to the next town. On the way back to the hostel we hit up the dinner once again. Another great full meal for second breakfest. The first was earlier today in the rest of the pie. An interesting thing is this town as small as it is has 2 outfitters. The one in the guide is mainly a canoe rental. The other one is new and pretty small. But it has a good selection. I try to buy from places like that when I can. I upgraded to a new pair of socks. A little costly at $19, but they are usually around 15 anyways. I am giving the Darn Tough socks from VT a try. I'll have to report back later on them. My 2 pairs of smartwool socks I alternate hiking in finally wore out after 900 miles. We got back to the hostel around 10 am or so. The church was having its services. I thought about going up, but I didn't want to go in after they started. I also wanted to pack up and repackage my resupply. The plan was now to leave by around noon and get to the shelter and relax. Well Torque still had a lot of packing to do along with a few other things. A nap for me was in order. So we pushed it back to 1pm. I got in a good little nap on the couch. The same couch I slept on last night. One of the perks about being a southbounder. Not a lot of people around means you don't have to fight for the good spots. We also found a great classic rock station on the radio. No new songs for me today. Some great Led Zepplin, Doors, AC/DC, Journey, among others though. Who would still in next but Betsy. She is the southbounder that has been just in front of me for awhile. She gt off for the gathering. We talked for awhile. Someone came in to chat that does some sectioning. H gave u                                          Betsy suggested it and it didn't take me long to agree to walk back to the bakery and get a carrot cake. The 3 of us walk over there and end up getting a carrot cake, pecan pie, and pumkem pie log. We got back to the hostel and eat a little under half of it. We decided to pack the rest out. Betsy didn't have any room in her pack for it, so I traded her the rest of her pie for my rain jacket to pack in. She probibly got the better end of the deal on that one. I think I ended up carrying 3 lbs of pie. Lets just say my pack left a little heavy with that and 2.5 lited of water. So finally at 3:40 we left the hostel. Since we were only going a little bit, we knew it would take less than 3 hours to get there. The hike up wasn't bad at all. What was bad was the tons of day hikers out. There were a bunch. I got a little ahead of Torque. So I decided to have a little fun. I told about 5 different groups to tell the guy behind me that he left something at the last break and I had it. I think it was his headlamp, spoon, knife, and a couple more things. Pretty funny to me at the time. I'll have to work on something better for the next time I get the chance to do that. We got to the shelter just before sunset. There is also a mom, dad, and son staying here. Really cool people that did all the work to get a good fire going. He is a scout and the dad is a scout master. They are up working on some different things. Torque and I had a good talk to them about it. Both of us went though scouts to Eagle. Good Times. Fashionably late after dark joing the after hours hiking club, Betsy rolls in. She said she was talking to a southbounder camped .2 back at an overlook we passed. He started up in the 30 minutes after we started but before she did. He got off due to injury and skipped ahead. Hopefully I'll run into him tomorrow. Funny how in the span of a week I go from being all alone to having 4 southbounders really close. I think I along met 13 southbounders, 4 of which got off the trail, and 2 flip floppers.