Date: 2003-06-20
From: Palmerton

To: Campsite N of Palmerton
Miles today: 9.0

The headache is stronger when I awake. I reach for the ibuprofen, but now my stomach is in on the act, clenched like a fist in my solar plexus. The sky is grey and drizzly.I don't want to go anywhere today. Just let me go back to sleep and start over.We gather about 7 am at the base of the first rock jumble. Itchy Foot has been worried about these rocks, and now he's got me worked up too. They're wet today too, decreasing our traction. The guidebook spoke of the heat roiling off this cracked, stony in summer as resembling "Dante's Inferno." But today, the day before the summer solstice, the rocks were cold and wet as a tomb.How much more dramatic can you get than that?"Piece of cake," assured Trooper. He promised to see us up safely before taking off. The soil here is filled with lead, cadmium and zinc emissions. So much so that this EPA Superfund site is still barren rock. The forested hills were killed by the poisons of a zinc smelter shut down by the government in the 1960s. Without forest cover, the dirt eroded and slid into the Lehigh River. All that is left are these bare, cracked boulders and shaley slopes. The devastation is unimaginable. Everywhere you look is naked, treeless rock. A 10-mile square Superfund site.And yet it is beautiful even in its spareness. Out West, there are dry, barren scenes like this, naturally. A moonscape of amazement, the cracked rock is compelling; you can't stop looking at it... ...So this is what underlies it all. So these are the bones of the Earth.Climbing the boulders uphill is tough with my pack. It gets in the way at certain technical areas, it slings itself east when I want to go west, tipping me off balance. It weighs me down. I have to pause before some steep step-ups, my knee bent to my chin, and gather all my energy for one sharp effort.NOBOS, get your packs as light as possible when leaving Palmerton. Two, two-and-a-half days max! I was VERY glad I wasn't descending this tumbled slope. (You couldn't exactly call it a "footpath" at this point.)"Man," I said to Trooper, "Just how would you describe this to the folks back home?""Oh, a little rock scramble," he teased. He is packless, just acting as guide for the first sketchy hour. He offered to carry my pack up but, mindful of Ben's accident and the guilt I'd had, I felt like I needed to carry it up myself. Slacking is one thing, having a fellow traveler carry your pack is another.For description, I was thinking more along the lines of "...she faced a towering wall of granite, polished to glassy smoothness by the scouring wind, rain and ice..."The truth was somewhere in between. Often, I faced a wall of rock with no apparent way up. But if I stared long enough, I would see little knobs, cracks, ledges where I could jam a toe. I kept 3 points of contact at all times, and often placed my sticks away, or tossed them above me. Every move was deliberate and focused, so much so that I forgot my nausea for a time. It was a challenge for me with the rain, wet rocks, heavy, food-laden pack and, near the top, the wind. At one point, small clumps of vegetation start appearing again, small sedges, little bushes, some birch saplings, even a stunted mountain laurel blazing away in full bloom. "Hope springs eternal," I note.Life is unstoppable.Once we were safely on flat ridge crest, Trooper took his leave and started the sketchy walk down. I didn't envy him that. Itchy and I continued northward. The rain increased, and so did the rock jumbles, though nothing as technical as the first climb.We had been warned not to drink the water, as it was poisoned by the emission residue. I carried more water than usual in this stretch. The next safe water source wasn't until the first shelter, 16 miles away.The rain came down harder. I was miserable - ill, wet, tired, chilled. Every time I got a little ahead of Itchy, I put my head down and sagged on my poles. When we sat for our 9 am break, Itchy urged me to eat, but I could eat nothing. I tried to retch; again, nothing.Finally, I'd had enough. Around noon, I came to a tiny, relatively rockless spot and stopped, putting up my tent in the pouring rain, shivering hard. I bade Itchy goodbye. He told me to catch him in Delaware Water Gap, the next stop.Of course, with wet raingear and equipment, that meant the inside of the tent was now wet too. I stripped off my wet socks and mopped as best I could. When I wrung them out, I extracted nearly a cupful of water.I tried to retch again, then fell asleep hard to the sound of loud spattering on the tent. I was glad I'd stopped. I felt a little better after sleeping. I woke two hours later to puddles of water, concentrated mainly in the corners. This tent condenses like crazy! I mopped with my wet socks, wrung out cupfuls more.I slept again until I heard my name called about 4 pm. Notes and Carry walked by. They would never make the shelter by dark, it was still downpouring. So they joined me, putting up their tent across the Trail from me. I hadn't put up a bear line yet, and they had no rope, so I gave them my rope and they strung our food, bless them. I still couldn't eat, and I was sparing with my limited water. I had seen some serious bear tracks in the mud this day. We are getting pretty close to New Jersey, home of many bears.I mopped all night, slept, finished "The Secret Life of Bees," slept, and mopped some more. I had to keep my down bag dry at all costs. I slept 20 hours, all told.