Date: 2011-06-26
From: Palmerton, PA

To: Leroy A. Smith Shelter
Miles today: 15.5
Weather: overcast clouds

I didn't have a solid plan for the day so I slept in quite nicely. That is until Wisconsin started taking phone calls and talking loudly before 7:00am. I slept rather well considering the hard wooden planks we were sleeping on. Breakfast was to be had accross the street at a wee diner that was supposed to be good. I got up and checked on the status of my wet clothes that i left drying in the boiler room. I showered in my clothes again last night to avoid the hassle of doing laundry. Sweetness, the clothes were bone dry. I was a bit worried about having to hike in wet clothes again. Flowers joined me for a great little breakfast a soon as they opened at 8:00am. He had to resupply so I journaled back at the hostel and slowly packed up my stuff. After looking at the guide book we both decided that a cheeky 15 miler would b simple enough to bang out post lunch. Flowers didn't faf about on his resupply mission, so we left the free hostel long before noon. The two of us went into another highly reccomended place for some sub sandwiches. When in PA one must eat cheesesteak subs. They were rather good, but Flowers is something of a Philly cheesesteak expert having frequented the best restaurants in Philly. These were a reasonable attempt apparently, but not the full experience. We stuck our thumbs out for a lift back to the trail. We had better luck at the gas station down the road. Flowers scored the ride before I could. I drew the conclusion that he was able to get the ride before me because he doesn't have the awesome hiker beard that I have been working on for three months. Unfortunately the awesome hiker beard does resemble a mental hobo beard rather closely. This makes things a bit more complicated for me in general when trying to interact with non-hiker folk. The easy solution would be remove the beard. Not an option. I digress. A nice Portuguese man gave us the lift. We started hiking at 12:30 pm and the climb out of the gap was a brutal one. We made it in great time, but suffered throughout the lack of switch backs. Near the top, the terrain switched to the classic PA scree field. The view was nice after having to hand climb a few sections.   The next five miles were such an amazing and welcome change in scenery that we took over two hours getting through it. We were stopping often to take photos, eat wild blackberries or just to admire the view. There was a cooler with frozen water bottles that was perfect timing. Trail magic is still going strong! We caught up with Shutter who did not go into Palmerton yesterday or today. We got to the shelter to find Saturday and Wisconsin there. We did not want an Eckville repeat with the biting insects, so we tented next to Comfortably Numb and Kermit & Caro. Some punk kids must have been partying there recently because we had to watch out for piles of vomit and gather up all of the fishing line that was strung around the campsite. I'm still not sure what the purpose of the fishing line was. I think they were trying to set trip wires. I was cooking dinner and had my first injury on the trail. I somehow managed to touch the scolding pot to my right knee. It wasn't serious, just annoying. Good times.