Date: 2011-06-08
From: (72) Eckville Shelter

To: (73) Palmerton, Jail House Hostel
Miles today: 25.4

A warm 5:30 am start foreboded what would turn into a 97 degree day as I left the shelter. At the top of the first mountain I found German Shepherd and Hand-Me-Down at a tenting site beside the trail; they had accidentally hiked past the shelter last night as I had suspected. I continued, and as I did the day grew burning hot, and the trail was very rocky, often involving some brief climbing on the boulder filled ridges. Water sources were on average two hours apart, so I forced myself to drink a liter at each of them, though some required an extra mile of blue-blaze hiking to reach (I ran). By sheer coincidence the three of us, who were hiking separately, all arrived at Bake Oven Shelter at the same time. It was a nasty mud hole, full of bugs and trash. We left disgusted, but before we did commented in the logbook that we had had ¢the displeasure of being here.¢ I had never seen such a vile place on the AT.The three of us continued to hike together to the next shelter, talking and having a good time. We stopped to rest before hiking the last stretch into the nearby town of Palmerton, and while sitting Hand-Me-Down argued with me that we were not really thru hikers until we finished the trail. I disagreed saying that we were actively attempting to thru hike and therefore thru hiking until the moment we quit. Then I became impatient and told him that I had already finished the Appalachian Trail and was sitting on Katahdin, but that time and the present had not yet caught up to me. The ridiculousness of this statement ended the argument. We hiked from the last shelter into town, which involved us walking down the side of a busy highway, and then discovering that we were on the wrong side of the highway and would have to cross to get into Palmerton. We watched the cars zip down the road at a million miles per hour and decided that there was no way we were going to run across the first lane, jump the concrete barrier, and then make it the rest of the way across before a semi hits us like a hiker trash pi±ata. There had to be a better way, and we searched for it. We walked down the highway until we found a creek going under it, and one by one climbed down the stone embankment, threw each other our packs, walked under the highway, and then back up on the desired side.When we finally arrived at Palmerton we walked down the main street until we found the ¢Jail House Hostel¢, a borough run hostel under the town hall that is free, complete with showers, bunks, and an upstairs basketball court (we had to register, and I got some laughs watching German Shepherd fill out his form with undecipherable German answers). We ditched our gear, showered, and then went to eat at a place called ¢Berts¢. The waitress there kept picking on us, and when Hand-Me-Down gave her his drivers license as photo ID for his debit card, she told him that she didn¢t know 10 year olds could drive (he looks young in the photo, and is sporting a ¢Rebel Without a Cause¢ haircut). German Shepherd and I died with laughter.After food we went to the local bowling alley and played a few games (I lost all of them magnificently). It was a blast and the bowling shoes felt great. We returned to the hostel for bed after hiker¢s midnight. It was full of hikers now, many of whom I knew and had not seen in a long time. They included: Charlie who is the English triple crowner I had met the day my filter broke aka the last time I ever filtered and the same day I found Helm, Bud Heavy who I had hiked huge days with in Northern Virginia, Cactus Jack who I had met in Atkins Virginia, Tigerlilly, Fuzzy Navel, Downhill, and many more. With a start I realized that this was the same bubble of hikers I had been with when I got off the trail for a week at home in Maryland. I had caught back up. Having done two 50 mile days past this group before taking my zero week, I have a pretty good idea of the hikers ahead of us. It is my opinion that this bubble is the first this far up north (of its size), a fact that would later be supported by the locals. Behind us are the majority of thru hikers, and ahead is spread out.