Date: 2015-06-22
From: Campsite 1234.7

To: Campsite 1259
Miles today: 24.3
Weather: clear sky

We woke early this morning, 5:30. But we didn't feel like starting the day yet. At 6:00, we roused for the day. A quick breakfast of dry cereal and some water got us going. We packed everything up, which was dry as we had a great breeze blowing all night. Then, hit the trail at 6:58. We had a quick uphill rocky trail to Dan's Pulpit. The view was very nice. After this, the next five miles were all rocks. It took us over two and a half hours to do these five miles. Normally, it would have taken us less than two hours. It is extremely hard to make good time with such a trail. We also had stiff necks because we always had to be looking down to watch the trail. We stopped for a rest at a shelter. We really needed a rest after the rocks. We left the shelter after 20 minutes and we were pleasantly surprised that the trail was considerably less rocky.   We even followed an old logging road for some time. We did see two snakes on this section of trail. Count just narrowly missed stepping on one of the snakes. We had nice trail for about 5 miles but then it was back to the rocks.   We stopped for our lunch break at 1215 just before Knifes Edge. This was a very trying section with the trail following a narrow rocky ledge at the top of the mountain.   The views from here were superb!   It took us quite awhile to get through this section. Then we again had a nice long section of fairly easy trail. Not that weren't any rocks but they just weren't that bad. The rest of the afternoon we had rocky sections of trail where the going was very difficult followed by easy sections with few rocks. We were coming up to a road crossing late in the afternoon when we saw two coolers sitting by the trail. It was Trail Magic and we really needed it. One cooler had fresh fruit and the large cooler had all kinds of food. There were doughnuts, poptarts, mac and cheese, and gallon jugs of water. This was just what we needed. Okay, the donuts had ants crawling on them. What do you think we did? Brush them off and each eat two or let the ants have them? We will let you decide what we did. The water was especially nice to get because it was about 12 miles between water sources today. We took a nice break here and enjoyed the trail magic. Then it was back to the trail.   We had several miles yet to go to get to the next water source which was at a shelter. We arrived at the shelter and were resting a bit when two day hikers came by; a mother and son named Chris and Chris. We talked to them about the upcoming trail. They said the rock scramble that was ahead of us wasn't that bad. They said it took less than 45 minutes to complete. They also told us there were stealth campsites along the ridgeline after the rocks. We thanked them for the information and said goodbye. Off we went to filter water. We took our normal water bottles full but also took 4 extra liters. The next reliable water source was 18 miles ahead. It was a hot day and we needed water for tomorrow. Each liter of water was 2.2 lbs.   Carrying an extra 4 liters of water between us adds alot of weight and we had to carry it across the rock scramble. Ugh, our packs were heavy. But, on we hiked. Down, down, down we went. We arrived at Lehigh Gap. At the bottom of the gap, we decided we were going to hike on, hiking the rock scramble. Since it was later in the day, it was cooler. The weather forecast for tomorrow is rain. We didn't want to scramble the rocks in the rain. So, off we were going.   First, we ate dinner. Sitting in a parking lot, out of the sun, we broke out our food bag and stove. We proceeded to make instant mashed potatoes and had beef jerky for dinner. Surely, we looked like hobos! People driving passed looked at us like we were homeless. To tell you the truth we ourselves driving passed would have thought we were homeless. We finished dinner, cleaned up as much as you can clean up our one pot and two spoons sitting in a parking lot and headed out.   We crossed the Lehigh River via a bridge. Then, we started a climb. The start of the climb was just a steep trail. Then, the trail turned to the rock scramble. We put our hiking poles away and just started to crawl up the rocks. Lavender had been anxious about this part of the trail. But, on we crawled. 500 feet we climbed over the rocks with our backpacks and the extra water weight. It was scary crawling over, around the rocks. Looking over the edge thinking "one slip". That was all it would take to go over the cliff. The trail was well marked. All we had to do was connect the white blazes. And, we made it. Oh, what a relief. Of course, we still had a steep climb over "normal" rocks. And we were exhausted from the physical effort we had just exerted. We hiked on through the "Superfund" area which was a result of zinc smelting years ago. This area was a waste land, minimal trees, few under brushe but lots of rocks. We did see a deer. It just stood there for several minutes. We thought it was a decoy until it moved its head. Then we started hiking and it finally ran. Wonder if the chemicals from the zinc smelting effected the deer?   We ventured passed this area and found a stealth campsite. It was later than normal for us to set up our tent. So, we quickly set up our tent. We were hungry. So we ate something. We gazed at the stars, saw some lightening bugs before calling it a day.