Date: 2023-07-31
From: Lookout Hostel

To: Stealth
Miles today: 20.1

Another cold night, but warmed up with my rain pants and jacket.Notably, this is my first day hiking solo since my first week of the trail, or over 100 days ago. Due to being an early bird, the plan was to roll out and meet friends at the end of the night if they caught up to me. However I ended leaving later than I meant to (around 7:30am) as first I ~had~ hear to some gossip from Yardsale and the area shuttle driver (I love hiking and the whole ¢eat whatever you want thing without gaining weight¢ but something I really enjoy about trail is the grapevine. If you are up to something or act like a dick, people will Know About It).I was off! I zoned out and hiked along; it was a beautiful cool day and I started off with some light scrambling over Knife¢s Edge, bouldering and hopping over rocks up Bake Oven Knob where I ran into a trail maintainer who was looking for some reported bees and warned me to ¢bee careful¢, I passed a dayhiker IN SANDALS on the rocks which was wild to me as we were firmly in entrenched Rocksylvania territory.I stopped by the shelter to camel up but couldn¢t find the water so I was like ¢eh I¢ll make lunch at the water cache, if it¢s stocked dun dunnn). I hiked to the cache and thankfully it had tons of cool wa wa, so I refilled while loudly singing to scare away any bears (a bold juvenile had been sighted there recently according to FarOut), then crossed the road to sit on a rock and make lunch / sing loudly. A car randomly passed me while I was eating and I was surprised to see someone up there because it was not scenic. After that I hiked some more, taking care to dodge any dead trees with rocks sitting in the middle of the path as an aggressive nest had been reported to sting folks 50+ times as per trusty FarOut, texting my mom because we got a belated invite to a wedding weeks away (not going). I took a quick break on a beautiful bed of pine needles because it was crying out for me to lay down on it, and then went to the next shelter where I ran into Fun Fact and Hammer! They, like me, were without their usual hiking buddies and I was like ¢look at us, going solo.¢ Fun Facts and I finally put together that we were at Hostel Around the Bend the same time, and were in the same shuttle with someone I had mentally dubbed Quicksand for his ability to trap you in the quagmire of terrible monologuing ¢ funny putting together that we had met long ago at the beginning.Neither of these shelters had privies which was annoying, but I saw there was a Lehigh Gap visitor center a mile below before the bridge which had bathrooms and closed at 5! Score. So I went down, and then the dudes zoomed past me of course, and I got out and was trying to find the center and had to call the center to help me out lol. Route finding was not my forte today for some reason. Once I found the side trail I walked there, enjoying their sensory garden, and got to use their super nice bathroom and refill the water. The guy at the desk was super nice, and a dayhiker came in and had questions about my poles so I gave him advice on how to hike with poles (I would not recommend thruhiking without them, hot take). The center was really lovely and apparently a former superfund site and was just a great repurpose of the site.After that I excused myself, and crossed the bridge (saw a Big Z tag which ironically helped me find the way as I was crossing a busy road) and then started the climb out of Palmerton which was an epic scramble and the most fun part of PA for sure. But also terrifying. I had to take breaks to catch my breath, and I would watch the raptors wheel in the wind currents right over my head. There was a dayhiker merrily skipping over rocks and I was in awe of him as I was on all fours climbing.It was here that I started losing steam a little and slowed down. However I loved the views as it felt very coastal with the scrub, sky, and drop off, and it was just pleasant to walk instead of scrambling as I had been ALL DAY. There was a beautiful breeze, grassy tunnel, etc. I saw on FarOut there was a blueblaze to a ski resort restaurant that had water!!, was hiker friendly, and also foooooood. It closed at 9 so I hustled off to make it, but I took a break and was like ¢I can¢t make it I¢m so tired¢ but after a few minutes I was like ¢I *can* do hard things¢ and ran off on the dirt road parallel to the AT downhill (I actually totally missed the blaze and thought it was the AT, oops). Once I got to the road intersection, I called the pub to confirm they were open, and then road walked to the pub until I was able to hitch a ride with 2 high schoolers!! I was thank you teenagers for saving my life, and the car was very kawaii on the inside lol.They dropped me off, the inside reminded me of a local hockey rink, and I went to the pub and sat outside enjoying the breeze / night / view / vibes / satisfaction of a day well done. I randomly ran into Star Waffle at the bathroom (after looking at the stall next to me and thinking this person must be a hiker because their feet were dirty in their sandals LOL) and she was there with First Class who I went to say hi to and ask if I could camp with them lol as Colossus did not make it to the restaurant in time. I got miso salmon with bok choy and coconut rice, and pretzel bites. Delicious.After dinner I hiked to the stealth site with First Class (who carried my pack!!!! What a gentleman) and Star Waffle, chatting with them. I set up camp and sat in the dark with First Class talking about his life and motivations for hiking.All in all today was great, I really enjoyed hiking solo and actually had a lot more convos with front country civilians about my hike since I was alone. But it was very relaxing to be alone with my thoughts and the day flew by. For sure today was one of my absolute favorites on trail, and deeply satisfying to crush a 20+ mile day.