Date: 2017-08-16
From: Mohican Outdoor Center

To: Kirkridge lean to
Miles today: 17.2
Weather: broken clouds

The two warnings from nobos that we were given again and again and again were about the mud of Vermont (or, as they dubbed it, "Vermud") and the rocks of Pennsylvania ("Rocksylvania".)As we crossed the Delaware River and changed from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, we didn't know whether to expect the rock warnings to be more overblown hype, like the mud had been. Or is there some veracity to the rock stories that, as a nobo called Treehouse had told me two days before, had been so dispiriting that they caused several of his friends to quit the trail?As we were pondering this on the ascent out of Delaware Water Gap, a section hiker approached, having come out of the area we were about to enter.Our attention was inescapably drawn to his boots, which were truly knackered and being held together with liberal quantities of duct tape."They looked new before Pennsylvania," he explained.But, like everything on the AT, it was just a matter heading on and finding out. The most measured nobo response I'd heard about the rocks were that they were tedious rather than difficult and that they were also intermittent, with long stretches of easy trail between them.Still, after seeing those boots...My departure from Mohican Outdoor Center was a leisurely one, timed around breakfast being served at 8am. The breakfast was worth waiting for, and it fuelled me through the first part of the day.I'd expected the 12 mile walk to Delaware Water Gap to be a mundane one but soon after rejoining the AT, I happened upon Grandpa and Train. We ended up walking most of the way to town together, which gave me a chance to get to know each of them a little better.One of the things I found puzzling about early retirees, as Grandpa was, is how much they focus on making their money last and how little they think about paying forward all the levels of privilege that had allowed them to retire early in the first place.But Grandpa's apparent obsession with the AT had a point. He knew the trail -- and more specifically, the people along it who help out hikers -- well enough that he could do a seven-month thru-hike for $1000. Any other trail would be far more expensive.And his daughter, a financial planner by trade, said that if he lives this minimalist lifestyle for six more years, he'll have enough money to open an AT hostel which will be donation based and just break even, while helping hikers with shallower pockets.Train was similarly interesting. He works writing network software to cover HVAC systems but through working for government, he has the highest level security clearance. Through this he has access to places like the White House.And yet he lives in Maryland, 15 minutes from where he was born, and has never travelled outside the US. Ever.His AT dream started when he was a 12-year-old boy scout and encountered a thru-hiker who stopped who explained what he was doing."I thought it was the coolest thing ever," he explained, and he vowed to do it one day. His 50th birthday, along with a few other events, was the prompt to turn "one day" into June 1, 2017, on Katahdin.These conversations helped some fairly mundane miles go by. There were a few features of note, but such features were out trumped by the prospect of more town food, across the border in Delaware Water Gap. After a slightly unnerving crossing of the river on the Interstate 80, which bounced every time a big truck went past, we walked into the pleasant enclaves of town.The Church of the Mountain hosted hikers for free, so Grandpa headed there while Train and I headed to a bakery and then to a gas station convenience store to do enough of a resupply to get us to Palmerton.Once the afternoon heat had eased a little, we climbed up the riverside bluff to regain the continuation of the long ridge we'd been following north of the river. It's the same geology, so why should the rocks be any different here?And then we saw the guy with the duct-taped boots...One of the bits of beta he gave us was that the difficult rocks didn't start for a few miles further and we had easy travel to Kirkridge shelter.I guess we'll find out about the rocks tomorrow...Life is good.AT fact of the day: One of the geomorphic landmarks today was passing the last glacier-carved pond on the trail, showing we were finally out of the area covered by the Larentide ice sheet until 20,000 years ago. Will that mean no more ribs of bedrock? And is this the reason why "Rocksylvania" is different?