Date: 2015-06-09
From: Evkville Shelter

To: Campsite
Miles today: 21.2
Weather: broken clouds

Last December, I hiked the upcoming sections of PA. However it was winter and covered in snow. So I am curious to see how the landscape looks in the summer. We set out and climbed up the first 3 miles to Dan's Pulpit from where we started our first rock jumble of the day. In the winter the rocks were covered in snow so you weren't sure how deep the crevices were between the rocks. Today the rocks were still wet from rain and just as slippery. It was slow going and we weren't going very fast. We paused at a sign announcing "balanced rocks" but the view was just so so and we didn't see any spectacular balanced rocks. The NYC Section Hiker caught up to us there and we told him we were heading to the Blue Summit restaurant on PA 309. However we weren't as close as we thought we were and the pace was slow over more rocks. We passed the time speaking in French. The NYC hiker passed us and also speaks some French because he stopped and pointed to a large "grenouille" (frog). We arrived at the Allentown Shelter for a quick break. It started raining hard as we left so we ran back to the shelter and decided to cook lunch instead of eat at the restaurant. It stopped raining just as we pulled out our stuff but we decided to cook anyway. Four miles later we arrived at the restaurant only to discover it was closed! Bummer! Fortunately we had cooked lunch! We got water and hiked on. We came to the Knife's Edge which is a narrow spine of steep rocks. The rocks are slanted so your are stepping in the edges. Rattlesnakes also can reside in the spaces between the rocks so as you are balancing with a 30+ lb pack and trekking poles, you never know if a snake may be also in the rocks. It was really fun (and a little nerve wracking) to climb up, over and down but we made it unscathed. I enjoy these rock combs. We had a few more rock jumble sections which are a little less fun. Soon we came to Bake Oven Knob which is a popular hangout. It's a steep climb up but once you get to the overlook, most of the rocks are painted with graffiti. A clean up project is scheduled for this Saturday. I am curious how they will clean graffiti off rocks. After another fun (not quite) rocky descent, we stopped by the shelter and chatted briefly with Wayfarer and Prime who were planning to spend the night. We moved on planning to get to the next shelter but it was still 7 miles away and it was already past 6. We passed by the NYC section hiker who waited for us at the closed restaurant while he ate his lunch. We felt really bad he waited.   We continued but our feet were really hurting from all of the rocks upon which we walked. I started moving slower and slower and we kept changing our ending point. We wanted to get as close to the shelter as possible because we needed to go into town in a Wind Gap so Crafty could get more snacks. She doesn't like most of what I eat ... I already offered her bars! As we passed the 4.4 miles to go point, we discovered Starman had just resupplied his trail magic and we found gallons of water, fruit and a plastic tub full of donuts, Knorr meals, bread, jelly, trail mix, pop tarts etc. according to his register, we had just missed him. Crafty was so happy. We took a break and enjoyed donuts and apples and we shared an orange. Water is scarce in PA and we were low with the next source being the shelter which we weren't going to reach that night. So we couldn't cook dinner. So the trail magic was very timely! Rejuvenated we hiked on for another 1.5 miles till it started getting really dark. My feet were really hurting and I was going even slower despite the sugar intake. It was very rocky and tent sites didn't look promising but we found a flat spot and set up camp about 3 miles a away from the shelter with a plan to wake up at 4:15 and start hiking by 5.