Date: 2005-06-27
From: Leroy A. Smith Shelter

To: Kirkridge Shelter
Miles today: 14.5
Weather: overcast clouds

Just as it got dark last night, the wind suddenly picked up. I was in my tent, trying to do my journal, when the wind picked up and I started to hear alot of creeking. I looked outside to see what the hell was creeking and I saw a dead tree right next to the tent. In fact, I had pitched my tent with 5 dead trees surrounding it! I was more than a little nervous about the trees until I fell asleep. To top it off, the pine tree that was directly above me, kept dropping water in my face. This morning, we checked Logger's ( Mike ) boots. The heels were falling off and I had glued them back on, they turned out to be OK. That's a good thing, because this is no place to have your shoes falling apart. Lots of rocks today- all day long. Mike was already feeling sore from yesterday, so it was a little bit rough. I know he had some rough times today. We started walking at about 7. At around 10, we walked into Wind Gap. The Gateway Motel is there. They advertise that you can get water from a spicket and get sodas there. We got 3 sodas each and sat on the lawn chairs while we drank them. A guy walked out of one of the rooms with some Budweisers. We managed to talk him out of a couple of them. We talked to him for a while. He was a local construction worker.We had to stop and wash Mike's pants because he had gotten bacon grease on them the night before and we didn't want any bears eating his pants. We filled up on water and walked another hour and a half until about 12:30 and found us a place to sit, cook and eat. Today was a good day to take alot of breaks and that's what we did. I didn't want to kill Mike the second day on the Trail. It's pretty rough doing 15 mile days on flat land right off the bat. It's definitely worse doing it over Pennsylvania rocks. We took off again after a 45 minute break. We walked about another 90 minutes or so, until we hit Wolf Rocks. It's a big rock scramble across this ledge. Some really big rocks, some that you had to use your hands to get on to. We sat on the top there and had some snacks and made some phone calls. After about 25 minutes, we decided to get out of there because we wanted to get to the next shelter by 4:30 or so.On the way, it started to drizzle. Then it started drizzling harder, and even though Mike was feeling bad, he picked up the pace considerably. He did not want to get soaked. The last 15 minutes to Kirkridge Shelter, he was running uphill. I was feeling sorry for him because I knew he was beat to death, but he was still booking it. We got up to the Kirkridge Shelter and there was an older couple sitting here. Their names were Sundance and Mary Turtle. It turns out that Mary Turtle was the owner of the bifocals that we had seen way back yesterday morning at Little Gap. We left them there thinking we would never find out who they belonged to. As it turns out, I spoke to OC1 and he's going to be coming through there soon. I left him a message that when he comes to the glasses to bring them because they are prescriptions and she would like to have them back. We got water from the retreat that is close by. We cooked and ate. It's 7:30 now and Mike is already dead asleep. He has had a rough few days. It's a long, hard Trail that we have done in the last few days and the rocks make it seem twice as long. He has felt the full impact of that. I can tell he is more than happy to be going home tomorrow. Short entry for tonight. That's it.