Date: 2004-06-19
From: Palmerton

To: Leroy A Smith Shelter
Miles today: 15.8

A completely beautiful day to start a hike! The rain last night, cooled things down considerably from yesterday. Crawled out of my bag at about 7 AM, threw on my town clothes and headed over to ¢Bert¢s¢, for breakfast. I love long distance hiking because it means I can eat as much as I want to and still not put on weight! So French Toast, potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs and coffee and I am ready to go. Back to the hostel for 1 more quick shower, then pack up my stuff, say CYA to my fellow hikers, (who will no doubt pass me on the trail later in the day and off I go. Head down to the drug store and buy a disposable camera, but as I¢m getting there I see all these old classic cars everywhere. Ask the folks at the Pharmacy, what¢s going on and they all excited about the car show that goings to take place today! There also seems to be a lot of debate abut the new police car that the town procured for the local authorities, ¢I don¢t remember agreeing to that says one, While the other laments, ¢ there¢s our money¢ ruefully shaking her head. Ahh life is good.        With camera in hand I take a couple of pictures of the town and then stick out my thumb. Len picks me up, in his truck, heading over to a nearby town to pick up some parts for a piece of equipment he is working on. He¢s an excavator and says whenever he can he ¢makes it a point to pick up hikers and take them to the trail, says he just loves to hear the stories they tell about the adventure they are on¢. I tell him about my near miss with the snake and then the follow up of the other time I was coming into Port Clinton, and my pole snagged a branch on the ground that I didn¢t know I was dragging. Well the dragging of the branch made the same noise as a rattler shaking his tail, so without knowing what was happening, I started running, but the damm noise was following me and getting louder. That¢s when I looked down and saw the branch. Well he was laughing so hard, by the time he dropped me off; I think he enjoyed the story as much as I appreciated the ride!        So I¢m finally on the trail with my extra heavy pack as there is absolutely no water on the top of the mountain I am going up to until you get to the shelter, and then once you get there it is a half mile round trip to the source, according to my maps. You see, this mountain is part of Superfund Site, due to Zinc smelting operations. So hence, you need to completely hike thru and past this area before you get any water that is drinkable. And so I¢m carrying about 10#¢s of water because I wasn¢t sure if I could make it to the shelter. And Heavens to Betsy, the profile map did not lie this time! The hike out of Palmerton is just shy of VERTICAL. 12 mile of up, by that I mean throw your poles up on top of the rocks and pull yourself up, up. So much for the shower, but I¢m so glad I¢m doing this today as the rain has defiantly cooled thing of and this part of the trail affords no shade at all. Motor along the next 5 to 6 miles, loving life as the path is now like a jogging path! Maybe I can make the shelter¢¦ As I¢m walking along this section, the mountain on the North side is completely barren, which affords clear views of the valley below, but at what a terrible cost. I can imagine if the smelting did this to all the greenery on this mountain, what did it do to the people who lived and worked here?Well, after the jogging path, the Pennsylvania rocks reared their craggy shoulders once again. Think of cobblestones, dumped on the trail with corners strategically turned up and no bare spots in between, I am now at a snails pace, and hikers that left after me are now passing me, (very frustrating!). I don¢t remember these kinds of rocks since the Smokies and that was a few years back. The only difference is there are MILES of these rocks!I finally make it to the shelter, my feet are toast, pain form ankles down, the shelter is full of all those hikers that passed me, so off I go to find a place to pitch the tent. OK so enough rock moaning, I tell myself, for every pain the trail extracts a gift is given, back¢¦