Date: 2012-06-17
From: Stealth Camp

To: Superfund Campsite
Miles today: 6.0

What a day. We walked a quick 3 miles from our campsite popping out of the woods to view the giant, steep boulder mound that is considered te toughest climb until you get to the whites. It looked promising and forboding. But I was in a gidd mood and up for the challenge, mostly because today is a town day. TOWN DAY! So first it was off to palmerton. I won't go into to many details of the adventure of getting into this town, mostly because I enjoy my freedom. Let's just note that on sundays things are less simple and zinc seltng plant workers are apaerently used to escorting wandering lost hikers off their property. We got to visit the jailhouse hostel which is an old municipal building (thqat was never actually used asajail) were the town let's hikers stay in the basement. Even better was the high presure shower that acted as a pressurewasher to blast the dirt, ticks and unwanted skin layers right off you. It was awesome. And it had been awhile since I had one so yes yes yes. The there as laundry and town food. Ahhhhhh twn food, you delicious msg loaded, grease seeping, mouth waering, high calorie goodness, how I crave you. Then it was offto the police tation to ask for the best way out of town, which apparently there is none because walking is illegal. Yeah america that's right. Wrried about people getting hit by cars? Don't bother coming up with alternate routes of pedestrian transportation, just make it illegal. That'll solve the problem. Sheesh, my inner city planner is mad today. Oh not really, I'm too hyped up to be mad, anyway we made it out of town and began our climbAh the climb. The throw your poles ahead of you, dig your nails into little rock crevices, scurry and scoot you way across the loose rock pile/ cliffside climb. It was awesome. The weather was. And beast rock climbers that we are, I only took us an hour and a half to go .9 miles. I got some great pictures of huff and puff climbing with blue sky and circling buzzards overhead. It was scary and mgnificent all in one. And then poof, you were at the top on flat grassy reforested superfund site. Appaerently this whole mountian was made barre and dead by the zinc smelting site below until the EPA stepped in and sad, "hey guys let's stop poisioning everything huh".   They've done a lot of work to bring back vegitation but you could still se the devastation through it all. It was strange because in a way all the dead trees an discolored grass had a strange desert beauty to it. Until you looked down at the giant smelting plant below and thought. Oh yeah right. Poision. The detour they routed us on was nice easy grassy trail with big juicy berries on al sides. Untouched berries asmost all the hikers passed them and thought hmmm superfund. We ended up campin toward the nd of the detour route in a little patch of less dead lookingtrees since it was getting late and we were conerned aboujt finding a site. Also as a side note 4 lliters of watr iks very heavy and climbing the hill with it was super fun mostly because we weren't finding or drinking any water on the superfund site. Ahahaha. Se how that went there? Okay overly giddy ad happy magpie signing out.