Date: 2007-10-06
From: Delaware Water Gap, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Woohoo! I've made it past the 1000 mile mark. It's hard to believe that I have already walked more than 1000 miles, and that I'm not even half way through. That said, however, I should be at the half way marker in about 2 days, which I'm looking forward to, to say the least.My night stealthing past the bear sightings went well. I had hung a bear bag, and it was completely intact when I awakened. I had a bit of extra water in the morning, which I dumped out, because I didn't feel like carrying it during the day. This was a mistake, to say the least. I started walking south, and when I got to the first shelter, I decided to take a quick break. When I pulled into the shelter, there was a fire going. This didn't seem very smart, given that it was totally unattended and that it hadn't rained in more than three weeks. The registry indicated a father and daughter had stayed the night before, so my guess is that they were the ones that left the fire. The daughter had written in the registry and said that she loved "hicking" with her dad. Perhaps she should go to spelling class; I'm not sure what it hicking is, but it doesn't necessarily sound like something that a person who dots their i's with hearts should do with their father. I ate a bit of food, and as I was packing up, a guy walked up carrying a grocery bag. He asked me if I wanted a soda, which I accepted, and we sat around and talked about the trail for quite a bit. He's from Jersey, but has done the majority of his hiking in Pennsylvania. He gave me some advice about lookouts to check out, and I headed out. I didn't fill up with water here, which I should have, because I had to go for the rest of the day after this with no more water...it was not good. The mileage for the day was 25.8, the highest so far for me on the trail. I was counting on coming across two springs that were close to the trail, but arrived at both to find them dry. I ended up doing the whole 25.8 miles on a can of diet Pepsi with lime, and one liter of water. I got to the Palmerton wasteland at the end of the day, which was interesting. They smelted zinc at the bottom of the mountain for close to a hundred years until the EPA finally shut them down and turned the whole mountain into a Superfund site. There were no trees, except for a few that were growing along the trail, and it definitely lived upto the nickname of the Martian Landscape that it has acquired. The descent into the gap was horrific, especially being so dehydrated. I was starting to feel lightheaded and all of that jazz, which only made me more pissed off that they put the trail along the terrain that they did! I still made it into town, however, but only after a 2 mile road walk, since I was unable to get a hitch. I pulled into the first restaurant that I got to, and drank 3 glasses of Mt. Dew and ate all of the ice, also, before my food even came. I spent the night in the basement of the Borough Hall, which was nice and quiet. I was able to take a super high pressure shower, which felt great, and stayed up until midnight reading trashy magazines that were there. I got up in the morning and hit up the laundromat, and while my clothes were washing grabbed breakfast. I switched over my clothes and hit the grocery store while they were drying; I was pretty proud of my multi-tasking abilities! I hit up the library briefly, and made it out of town at 11, but had to walk back to the trail, so I didn't start the climb up to the ridge until noon. I had 17.7 miles to do, all starting at noon, so it was going to be an ambitious afternoon, to say the least. It sprinkled briefly twice during the afternoon, and towards the end of the day it started to look like serious rain, and I made 4.1 miles in 61 minutes to get to the Allentown Hiking Shelter just as the skies opened up. There was tons of lightning and the rain was coming down like mad. Luckily, no soaking wet fellow hikers showed up, so it was nice to have the place to my self! I awakened to nice, cool temps, and beautiful, clear skies. It was a bit breezy, and for the first two hours there was water dripping down from the trees, but it was great hiking weather. I hit the Pinnacle right at lunch, which was great. It has an awesome view of the farms below, and there were turkey vultures that roost on the cliff below the lookout. I sat up there and monopolized the very tip of the view point, much to the disappointment of some other people that walked up there, and enjoyed the great views. After about 2 more miles, I hit another great view, but didn't stick around, as I was excited about heading into town. I descended into Port Clinton, where I hoped to stay the the B&B. Unfortunately they were closed, so I settled on the Port Clinton Hotel. The no-tell-motel that I stayed in the night I got kicked out of my college dorm was much nicer than this place. I had to give a $10 deposit for my room key and towel, and after paying was rather surprised to find public bathrooms. There were 8 rooms, with 2 bathrooms, and I took a shower (they didn't even provide soap) in the super slimey shower. The selling point, however, was the bar and restaurant about 30 steps away from the door of my room. I drank some Coronas and ate wings and a huge plate of fries and went back to the room and watched tv on the 12" tv with no remote (maybe I had to pay a $25 deposit to get a remote or something). I woke up the morning of the 11th to find that it had rained. I wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of walking in the rain, but was happy in thinking that it might have filled some of the springs. I headed out of town in a t-shirt and shorts, and it was about 65 degrees, with forecasts for additional rain during the day, though scattered. It started to rain as I was making the ascent out of the gap, and I pulled into the first shelter after getting soaked to the bone. I ate a quick lunch and switched to my longsleeve silk weight shirt and put on my rain jacket. Luckily, I have gotten to the point where all of my gear is in drybags inside of my pack, including my sleeping pad and bag. It continued to rain all day, but since I was walking with my jacket on, it actually wasn't that bad. I made it 23.7 miles for the whole day, about 18 of which it was raining for. I haven't walked in rain for so long since Maine, and it helped to confirm my thought that it's not necessarily fun to walk in the rain! I arrived at the 501 shelter, which is fully enclosed and has a faucet, to find the interior strewn with tons of gear. There were 12 bunks, but there seemed to be enough stuff spread out to indicate that they were all taken. I was standing there, and two people walked up carrying pizza boxes. One was Burt, who I had briefly met during my stay at Tom Levardi's up in Massachusetts, and another was Gaiter, a section hiker. They had pizza delivered to the road crossing next to the shelter, and eagerly offered me pizza! It was great; I had spent all day walking in the rain, and within 10 minutes of arriving at this awesome shelther, I was eating hot pizza...I'm livin' the life!!! I had planned on doing 30 miles the 12th, but really didn't feel like it at all, so I decided to hike with Burt all day and do 17, since I hadn't hiked with anyone in a really long time. We had a great time. We talked and talked and talked, which was great; it was nice to be able to talk about everything from hunting to coal furnaces to the trail. We passed through a major coal mining area where the water was super duper acidic, to the point where the local chapter of Trout Unlimited had installed these diversion pipes that put the stream flow through these big concrete drums that were full of crushed limestone, in an attempt to moderate the water's pH. The Raush Gap shelter, where we stayed was really neat. They took an old basement from the minining community and built the shelter in one of the corners, so it's surrounded by dirt, and has a big stone wall around a recessed area in front of it, with some really neat stone steps down into it. We were happy to find that the spring there was running, ever so slightly. Apparently it usually runs pretty strong, because it's piped, and it's a 4 inch PVC pipe coming out of the ground! Too bad it was only dripping when we got there, but it provided enough water for what we needed. When we woke up the morning of the 13th, Burt informed me that it was the first day of muzzle loader deer season, so I was sure to wear my blaze orange, since most of the trail in Pennsylvania goes through state game lands. We didn't hear any gunshots until the end of the day, however, and they were all pretty far off. We saw tons of other hikers, though, I guess because we were within a half hour's drive from Harrisburg and because it was a Saturday. We got a water report from some NOBO section hikers from North Carolina, which was really nice. We came across an absolutely amazing spring in the last valley of the day. It was perfectly round, crystal clear and the water tasted great. Some really loud day hikers came up while we were there filtering, and we talked to them for a while. There was one lady in the group, and she asked me about the trips that I had done, and then she told me that I was spoiled after I had told her about them. I told her that I wasn't spoiled and that I didn't get anything for free, just that I bust my ass to make money, and that then I like to spend it on traveling around the world. I'm not spoiled; I'm driven and smart, and not content with sitting at home in front of the television. Burt and I hiked together for the remainder of the day, and we arrived at the shelter to find it full of 22 boy scouts, and Earl Shaffer's original shelter, which is next to it, full of 6 day hikers. This is where the fun starts, hence I will move to another paragraph. The one fear that I have on the trail is being hurt and having to rely on potentially shoddily-trained, prepared or just plain ignorant/stupid emergency workers. I have come across quite a few of these folks in my time volunteering and working in EMS as a medic; they're everywhere, unfortunately. As I was cooking my dinner at the Peter's Mountain Shelter (full of the scout group), I heard someone shout "stop, drop and roll!" Having never heard anyone actually say this in real life, I looked over, to see a 15 year old kid dancing around with alcohol flames all over his stomach and licking onto his back, and flaming washclothes and a matchbox on the floor of the shelter. I shut off my stove and went over, but someone patted out the last flame on the scout as I got to him. Water was incredibly scarce at the shelter, especially given the large group size, so I grabbed the still-flaming things and threw them in the fire pit. Apparently, the kid had attempted to pour denatured alcohol stove fuel into a stove that was still on fire...huge mistake. He quickly started to blister, and along with the scoutmaster and a scout parent, who was a physician, we decided that the kid needed to be taken to a hospital, but given the location of his burns, that he should not walk down the 3.5 miles to the nearest road. The scoutmaster called 911, and talked to the dispatcher briefly, and then I talked to her some more to determine a route for the crews to make their way to the shelter. The kid was pretty small, so I said that if they brought a Stoke's basket, that they would be able to carry him out in it. About an hour later, the crew from the fire department showed up with an EMT from the ambulance. Not wanting to step on any toes, I stood back and didn't identify myself to them, though they were aware that someone was a medic and that someone was a doctor. This kid had 2nd degree burns on the front of his abdomen that wrapped around to his left side and back. The first thing they asked him was if he felt like he could walk...they hadn't brought anything to carry him down the mountain in! They also didn't bring a medic with them, since this kid was going to be in some excruciating pain when the blisters ruptured as soon as he moved. I then identified myself and asked if they had any burn sheets, to which they replied that they didn't...I'm not sure what school they went to, but when you're dispatched for a burn patient at the top of the mountain, and you park your ambulance at the bottom of the mountain, you should carry your burn sheets to the top with you! They acted exasperated, and I dressed the burn with the little bit of stuff that they had brought. I was shocked at how dumb they were! Anyways, they had the kid walk down the mountain, and I'm guessing that he didn't die.This scenario totally backed up my huge fear of getting hurt up on the mountain. The dispatchers had no maps of the area that showed the trail, so they didn't really know where we were at, which slowed things way down, and then we got a bunch of unprepared, ignorant people from the fire department and rescue squad. Oh well...I arrived in Duncannon this morning, and it's quite the interesting town. I am going to skip staying at the Doyle tonight; I had my fair share of diveness at the Port Clinton Hotel. Burt's got to stay in town to hit the PO in the morning. I've got to get out of town so that I can get to the next PO to pick up my sleeping bag liner, which mom mailed out on Thursday. The rocks of PA definitely took a toll on my feet, but tomorrow is a 25 mile walk through a valley, which ought to be really nice. They spent about 10 million bucks buying up old farms and things so that there isn't any road walking, so it should be nice, flat, soft terrain.I will hit the midpoint marker on Tuesday, which I'm really excited about, and then will be in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia on Friday. By Saturday I will be in the home land (Virginia). I believe that I will catch the guys that I was walking with before I got off here in two days or so, which I'm really excited about, too. There are about 14 other SOBOs within 3 days of me, which is pretty neat. I'm moving fast; haven't done a day less than 17 miles since I got back on the trail, except for today, which will be 16 miles! My pace has stepped up quite a bit, too; I'm reliably doing 3 miles an hour, which is amazing. It's nice to be able to do 20 miles with plenty of time to sit down and eat lunch and things and still finish before it gets dark. Anyways, I've already done 12 today and still have to hit the grocery store for some food and things before heading out, so it's time to sign off.