Date: 2016-08-28
From: Leroy A. Smith Shelter

To: Campsite mile 935.3
Miles today: 19.0
Weather: clear sky

August 28, 20162nd Tentspot past George Outerbridge shelter mile 935.3   19 miles hikedRocks Status- Mostly Moderate - requiring more than usual foot concentration, feelings of aggravation, some cussing possible. Also a short span of Treacherous- Requiring complete concentration and wall hugging spider like skills. A cold sweat may break out after footing has returned.OK, how long is Pennsylvania? 250ish miles? ugh. Well, I am just going to do as many miles as I can every day to be done with this state. I have decided. Most people will tell you to slow down in PA because- Rocks, hmmmm, I am over it, I am going to get past these sneaky pointy unreliable ROCKS as fast as possible. This is bad, I am complaining already and from what I understand, I haven't even gotten to the horrible rocky parts yet. White Walker and I were leap frogging all day, thank god. I would get annoyed with the terrain and then I would see him up ahead with his easy going, nothin¢ botherin¢ him stride and I would feel better. Thanks White Walker!! Today covered miles and miles on a ridge. Sometimes the trail was just below the slanted rocks that made up the ridge, at times I was walking on the slanted rocks, sometimes the trail went up and over the ridge rocks and back, east side then west side. I carried a lot of water, why? because¢¦no water on the ridge. The views however were of big scooped out valleys on the west side and one very wide flat valley with ripples and small hills on the east side. The views were really pretty. Toward the afternoon, the trail goes over Blue Mountain, kinda creepy area the had been contaminated by zinc processing. It¢s in clean up mode now and has been for 30 years. Still creepy. The vegetation is stunted and unvibrant. I could see the Lehigh River from up top. I was coming around a corner down a slope and back into the woods and I run into White Walker. He had stopped and was eating with a group of Korean people. They hike a lot and were out for the day. They had chairs and a huge spread of food! The men were giving White Walker everything, I don't think he knew what he was eating.  The women started giving me food too! This makes up for the terrain for sure. I ate sushi for the first time, and some kind of pickled fish, a vegetable dish that was super spicy! How cool was that?! Thank you so much to this very kind group of day hikers! The next mile was down a smooth slab with an occasional rock hand hold all the way down to Lehigh Gap over the river. Holy spider moves! I had no idea that was on the docket for today! I got to the bottom and saw White Walker sitting on a log, wait, he held up a can of soda?! Trail Magic! So so so good! we had a couple of sodas each and Little Debbie snacks and applesauce. We are good to go now, across the bridge and up to the next ridge. we got to the shelter and decided it was yucky. we decided to check out campsites along the ridge. But before we got going we filled up all of out water containers possible because¢¦. no water for a long time! So a long day that ended well, Korean food, water and a grand view. Just me and White Walker here tonight. Insect SOBO 2016