Date: 2009-07-21
From: road crossing south of Kirkridge Shelter, PA

To: Delaware Water Gap
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

I have met up with Jim Dandy, and will begin hiking north again today. We will be starting on a road crossing just south of Kirkridge Shelter. The weather has been absolutely lovely the last two weeks that I have been off the trail, but as you can imagine, the forecast has changed!!! The forecast is for some sort of rain event for each of the next 7 days. This does not surprise me. At least the rain will help with replenishing the water sources.Irene and Armie have started hiking the John Muir Trail in California, and will be returning to their home in the middle of August. I will try to update this journal when I get into trail towns if there is computer access available. Otherwise we will have to wait till Irene returns from their vacation.Happy Trails to all!!I (Irene) am back, so I will be updating some of these days that I have journal entries for. The John Muir trail was awesome! Now, back to Jersey Girl...Ron & I drove to Pennsylvania with the plan for me to meet up with Jim Dandy on Tuesday morning in Delaware Water Gap, PA. So we had plenty of time to drive out to Cabela's Outdoor Store to scope it out and have some lunch. Soon after arriving at Cabela's, I got a call on my cell phone from Bee Man. He was hiking with Jim Dandy and Y Knot. Well, Jim Dandy took a nasty fall and had a huge laceration on the bridge of his nose, another laceration over his left eye, and he was sure that he had a broken nose. Bee Man said Jim Dandy needed to get medical attention and asked if we could meet them at Rt 191 and take him to the hospital in East Stousberg. So we immediately left Cabela's and headed to the trailhead.Jim Dandy, Bee Man and Y Knot came out of the woods shortly after we arrived at the trailhead. Bee Man and Y Knot continued onto Kirkridge Shelter after wishing Jim the best, and we headed to Pocono Medical Center in East Strousberg.Jim's 5 hour stay in the Emergency Room resulted in him being seen by a plastic surgeon who sutured the laceration on the bridge of his nose and then he re-aligned the broken bones of his nose and applied a splint to his nose. The ER physician sutured the laceration above his right eye. After going to CVS to fill his presciptions we headed to the Budget Inn and crashed for the night. Woke up this morning to a familiar sight...RAIN! The forecast is for rain to continue, in some fashion for the rest of the week. Oh Well, at least we should find good water sources.Got to the trailhead at 11:45 and started our 7 mile hike north. The trail was somewhat rocky, but pleasant. We were on a ridge for most of the hike, but no views because of the thick cloud cover and rain.As we came within 1/4 mile from the end of our hike we met an elderly couply who had started walking the trail 3 hours earlier, had erroneously turned onto a blue-blazed trail, and now were lost. They had managed to find the white blazed AT, but were hiking south instead of north, which was the direction back to their car. They were scared and very thirsty. We gave them some water and hiked out with them. They were so appreciative. They were afraid that they were not going to see anyone else on the trail and would remain lost. Jim Dandy and I were so glad we were able to help them.Ron was waiting for us at the trail/road crossing and showed us where the hostel was located. We went in, claimed our bunks for the night and went to the diner for our excellent early dinners. Ron & Jim had homemade chicken pot pie (a real hit) and I had chicken parm and spaghetti. Excellent meals!Ron then left to go home after driving us back to the hostel. I always hate to see him leave. It was a full house at the hostel tonight and I got to talk with 2 brothers who are SOBO's (southbound hikers on the AT -ed).