Date: 2005-04-25
From: Palmerton-Parkside Inn, Room 8

To: Delp's Spring
Miles today: 9.7

It rained a little overnight, but the morning was dry and very cold. Started off on the road hike early, and this time I was facing the oncoming traffic, so I felt a little better.   Backtracked to the end of the bridge, so as not to miss any white blazes, and set off. As Jig had said, once you arrive at the parking lot, you can see the steep rocky incline rising like a wall before you. The Winter Trail ¢ which bypasses the steep and rocky part of the climb ¢ also starts in the parking lot, to make it easy to succumb to the temptation. But no! Off I started on the ¢scramble up the denuded rocks from Lehigh Gap [which is] among the most challenging on the AT south of New Hampshire¢ according to the Companion.   It started out hard and rapidly progressed to difficult, to very difficult, to damm scary. It is a very sharp incline and is composed largely of ¢denuded rocks¢ which get bigger and bigger. Pretty soon you have to abandon your hiking poles altogether and resort to, first scrambling on your hands and feet, and then to actual climbing hand over hand. The last 200 feet are particularly harrowing. It is almost straight up over bare rock, and you have to pull yourself up with your handholds. Tough stuff. As I was climbing the last bit, the wind picked up and I had some small snowflakes for company at the top. Because of the extreme exposure, the views are incredible. The crest is a sharp rock ridge and you peer over it with your feet on one side and your head on the other!      Then it was over a long and difficult boulder field and then the hard part was, at long last, past. In reality it was not as bad as I had feared ¢ since I had built it up in my mind to be an impossible barrier ¢ but it certainly was an exclamation point in my hike so far!      The next several miles are through the Palmerton EPA Superfund site. It is like hiking on another planet. The toxic zinc, cadmium and lead emissions from the Palmerton zinc mines have totally devastated an area of about 10 miles in circumference. All of the trees are dead, and most have fallen, with their whitened weathered skeletons reminding me of driftwood on a beach. There is no soil ¢ just the dead trees and the bare rocks. It was like walking trough a graveyard, a somber sight. It is hard to imagine that this area will ever recover ¢ and then I saw a small patch of wildflowers clinging to a sheltered spot in the rocks. Life will find a way.      The day continued cloudy, cold, with intermittent spitting of snow and hail all day. I remained fully wrapped up in my cold weather gear all day long. The going was relatively easy however, all the way in to Little Gap.   Climbing up out of Little Gap, I met four section hikers heading for Lehigh Gap. The leader ¢ a woman ¢ had little time for my cautionary tails of the descent into the gap ¢ it would be much worse for them going down ¢ and quickly and abruptly dismissed my account, and then changed the subject and quickly hiked on with her three companions in tow. You need to listen to what other people have to say, lady! But then everybody hikes their own hike ¢ and some people hike other peoples hike for them also.      Shortly afterwards I met with Mike SOBO. Nice guy, listened to what I had to say about the trail ahead, and gave me good information on the trail NOBO. What a difference between him and the other hiking group ¢ differences in personalities I suppose.   When I arrived at the side trail to Delp¢s Spring, the spring report register, which tells hikers whether there is water down at the spring, was missing. So I had an anxious 0.3-mile descent wondering if there would be water. There was just a bare trickle from the pipe, but I was able to scoop up enough from the little pool.   I have erected the tent at the junction with the AT. Very rocky soil, and I have the tent guyed out on to large rocks. Should work.   Good signal ¢ left a message for KT and will call her again later.   Am ensconced in the tent now. Very windy and cold with some rain showers. A good day however.Thought for today ¢   You can¢t force advice on a know-it-all.      A clinched fist can¢t receive.