Date: 2005-04-21
From: Windson Furnace Shelter

To: Allentown HC Shelter
Miles today: 16.5

The young white pines, like adolescent girls, flirted unashamedly, waving their bright green lacy sprays of fine needles at the exploding green sea foam of the under story.Awoke before dawn in anticipation of a long day, and I was not disappointed. Started off with a steep ascent to Pulpit Rock with the early morning sun still too weak to strip me of my rain gear and gloves. Then a long and rocky ridge walk to the Pinnacle, reportedly the best view in Pennsylvania, and in the morning sun today, I could well believe it. There is a large cairn on the Pinnacle, made up of individual stones and rocks that each passer-by adds to. These summit cairns are common in Ireland, but I have not seen that many of them here on the AT. I added my little pebble to the collection and continued on my way.    Another long and rocky ridge walk, followed by a sweeping broad descent into Eckville on a forest road. The trail followed the road for almost all of the descent and I was finally able to get some sort of hiking rhythm going.   After crossing the Hawk Mountain road, it was another ascent. Near the top I met Little Joe SOBO from Delaware Water Gap ¢ solo, carrying a guitar. He is hoping to retrace my steps to Harpers Ferry.       The crest walk rapidly became very rocky and while I was taking a break at Dan¢s Pulpit, I met Jig and Shamrock, two good Irish names! They are section hikers slack packing SOBO today. Jig is a retired special education teacher, and Shamrock hails from New Orleans. They issued dire warnings of bad trail conditions to this shelter, and they were right.   The trail from Dan¢s Pulpit on here to the shelter was very difficult. It was extremely rocky and I spent a lot of time going through large boulder fields. All you can do is take a sighting on the next white blaze and scramble your way over the rocks to it. There is no trail per se between the blazes. When not going through the boulder fields, the trail consisted of sharp fist sized rocks [they have people especially employed to keep them razor sharp], which combined with numerous blow-downs made the going extremely slow.   Under conditions like these, the only thing to do is to slow down and to take it nice and easy and slow. There is no point in worrying about how long it is taking you to cover the ground. Just be careful with each step and keep a sharp eye on the next blaze. Not always an easy thing to see, because of all the off trail detours forced by the blow-downs. This is the hardest section of the AT in PA for me so far. And they say that it gets worse further north.   Am now however at Allentown HC Shelter. Got water ¢ the blue blaze spring is running ¢ and signed in on the register. There was a note in it for me from Trashman ¢ thank you for remembering me Trashman ¢ I realy did appreciate your remarks.   Got a good signal and made arrangements to stay in Palminton on Sat. and Sun. night. If it continues like this tomorrow and Saturday I feel like I will have earned the extra zero day.   Weather is still fantastic ¢ forecast for tomorrow is showers in the afternoon. Solo here so far.Thought for today ¢   To love others as you love yourself, Implies that you should love yourself as you love others.Don¢t be proud of your humility.