Date: 2015-06-10
From: Campsite

To: Wind Gap
Miles today: 24.4
Weather: clear sky

It was an early morning as we started hiking by 5:20. It was light and breezy. I saw a doe on the trail. We paused at the Shelter and said hello to Ox and Obsolete. Walking Man and his son GQ were also sitting there. We descended down and crossed the Lehigh River and highway. The climb out of Lehigh Gap is very steep, rising 900 ft in less than a half mile. And the top is a big rock climb where you have to Ross your hiking pole ahead of you and pull yourself up rocks. One false step and it would be a very bad fall. Having a 30 lb pack also throws of your balance as you climb. However it is an awesome climb and my favorite one so far in the trail. It's challenging and scary but exhilarating. Once you climb over the ridge, you have to cross more rocks and boulders on the other side until you make it back onto trail. We met Solo a new thru hiker. Ox, Obsolete, and a couple more hikers we didn't recognize passed by while we had a snack. On the way we ran into Hawkeye who was sitting in the middle of the trail. He is thru hiking but unfortunately has an alcohol problem which he admits. He asked us to chat with him for a few minutes which we did and finally moved on. We later learned he had been there since 6 am and everyone we saw who passed by after we did had seen him still there.The trail went through a few miles of a Superfund site and along a ridge where you could see an ugly industrial zone in Palmerton.We met Wookie from Colorado a mile or two later while he was taking a break. We had been seeing his trail journal posts for awhile and we finally caught up to him. He caught up to us on our break and we hiked the next few miles together enjoying a snack break at a fire pit with rocks set up like a sofa. All of our feet were killing us and we had a lot of miles to go. Still miss my boots! Reluctantly we started hiking again but each step was painful for all of us. Fortunately having someone new to converse with helped distract a little but soon we all fell silent as we suffered. To make it even more fun, there was also no water sources for 16 miles between shelters and then the water source was 0.4 miles off the trail. We paused at the shelter but none of us wanted walk an extra 0.8 miles for water so we decided to hold out 4.6 more miles to Wind Gap. Walking Man and GQ caught up and told us about camping behind the Beer Stein in town. I originally didn't wNt to camp in town because I knew the road would be very noisy. The last few miles were so slow. Suddenly camping behind the Beer Stein sounded like a great idea. We paused a mile to go and confirmed our plans and made it down to the road. We discovered en route we could no longer camp at the Beer Stein so now we needed a new plan. The traffic was fast and since we were five, we decided to just walk the extra mile to town. Crafty and I stopped at the laundromat to do laundry. Crafty met a nice couple Liz and Rick on her way back from the convenience store who gave us a drink and we sat and chatted while our laundry finished. Then we walked across the street to the sports bar and sat outside with Wookie, GQ and Walking Man. They had already eaten but we sat and chatted while waiting for our food. GQ and Walking Man are from Maine. GQ sailed across the ocean with a friend to Africa. They told us they planned to go back to the trail and camp.We ate and picked up our laundry. Liz and Rick had left granola bars in our shoes. Then walked to the TurkeyHill gas station where I asked a guy fueling his car for a ride back to the trail since it was dark and the road didn't have a sidewalk all the way. Carl aka "Chopper" was very nice and said his uncle hiked the AT a few years ago. He gave us some chocolate chip cookies his aunt had made and we were back on the trail in 5 min. We climbed up and hiked about 0.1 miles till we saw Wookie, GQ and Walking Man setting up camp. They already had a campfire going but had only been there 15 min since they had walked back to the trail. We set up our tents and then sat around the fire with them for another hour or so.