Date: 2011-06-18
From: Jailhouse Hostel, Palmerton

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 15.5
Weather: overcast clouds

(In which I scramble out of Palmerton)Travis has a car, so Mehap, Tom, Travis and I get back to the trail without needing to walk the tracks. Travis leaves his car at a parking area next to the trail and we begin the steep climb up the hill. The trail gains 1000 feet over the first mile, and in true Pennsylvania fashion consists entirely of rocks. We all stash our poles in our packs to free our hands, and my walking sticks poke up out of my side pockets like warning flags. We joke to Travis that we only show outsiders the most difficult sections of the trail so that they will be extra impressed by the thought of hiking the full two thousand plus miles.The climb leads to a grassy field overlooking Palmerton. The field, the guidebook tells us, is part of the local Superfund site and was recently a barren, zinc-contaminated wasteland. As we walk through the innocent seeming grass, we begin to see a fallen forest of dry, dead trees. "It's the kind of scene you expect to see after a forest fire," Mehap says, and only the eerie lack of blackening offers evidence that it wasn't a fire that caused such destruction.We take a break in the shade near an empty cooler of former trail magic. We have already gotten up to leave when we see someone carrying a replacement cooler walk up the trail. "Orrrrr we could just stay a here a few more minutes," Tom says, seeing the cooler. The cooler is carried by Little Foot, a section hiker who lives in the area, and contains juice, water and oatmeal cream pie snack cakes. The juice tastes wonderful after a climb in the hot sun and we all take cold water bottles with us to get us through the next 11 waterless miles.When we stop for a lunch break I meet Schmuck and Hazard for the first time, two hikers I had heard stories about, but whom I had passed without meeting when they got off the trail at Harpers Ferry to visit Washington DC. We hike with them for a bit and then stop at a road crossing to toss Hazard's frisbee around on the little used road. True to the stories and his name, Schmuck is entertainingly immature. "Do you guys ever have fantasies that a hot woman will drive up and just say, 'Let's have sex'?" he asks. Though this is likely the core of more than a few male fantasies, I can't help but laugh at the preposterous simplicity of Schmuck's version.With his beard, Schmuck looks older than his 21 years, even if he doesn't act it, and it's easy to forget that many of the guys on the the trail act immature because they they really are still growing up, and cannot be expected to have the same level maturity as us old folks past our twenties.Schmuck and Hazard hike on, but we stop at the shelter to tent. Fifteen miles is a long first day for anyone (one of the hardest initial lessons is to learn to hike less than you're able, especially at first), and I feel bad that we've pushed the uncomplaining Travis this far, but the water and camping situation made stopping anywhere earlier impractical.We attempt to show Travis how to hang a bear bag, and after finding a perfect branch, proceed to fail miserably at throwing a rock with a line over it. After a few tries we make a competition out of it, each getting three attempts to thread the line through a perfect but elusive gap in the branches. It takes one full round of failed attempts before Tom finally succeeds on round two, and I am glad to learn that I am clearly not the only person who struggles with bear bagging.I borrow one of Mehap's trekking poles to set up my tent and am amazed to recall how much bigger the tent is when set up with a pole of the appropriate length. I easily have double the space that I did the other rainy night, when I could have used the space to keep my sleeping bag dry, and it's like getting a whole new tent. I'm quite fond of my wooden walking sticks, and other than their shrinkage have been impressed with their durability, but reluctantly decide that I need to get at least one adjustable pole for use with the tent.I had my hopes up to watch a movie in Wind Gap tomorrow, but was disappointed to learn that the only options were Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Hangover 2, so my first movie on the trail will likely have to wait until some later date.