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Pennsylvania

I am looking forward to NJ, mainly because it's not PA

Kevin

by Kevin

I now completely understand why hikers hate Pennsylvania by the time they leave the state.

I was up at 6:00AM this morning. After packing up, Cookie and I went for breakfast at a local diner called Bert's Steakhouse. The food here was good, and the purposeful interior design made you feel like you were living in the 50's.

It was then time to hitch back to the trail. It took Cookie and me 30 minutes before a nice lady stopped and picked us up. Whn she first pulled over, her dogs looked ready to take a chunk out of my leg, but they turned out to be friendly dogs.

Cookie and I began the ascent out of Lehigh Gap around 8:45AM.

The climb out of the gap was amazing, it was the first time I actually felt like I was climbing a mountain in a long time. It's quite steep most of the way, and there are a few spots where you need to use your hands to get up and over a rock face.

This climb and the ridge it leads to are barren due to zinc smeltings that ravaged the area for almost 100 years. Efforts began in the 1980's to reforest the area. This area is known as the "Palmerton Superfund Site".

Believe it or not, I found the climb out of little gap to be tougher than the one out of Lehigh Gap. This is mainly due to the fact that I was expecting it, and it was extremely rocky of course.

Cookie and I had lunch at some view on a blue blaze trail. This is where I called Mechanical Man to see if it was feasible to drop in for the night. After talking with Cookie, we determined it to not be feasible based on our planned milage, timetable, and expecting terrain ahead.

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking a viewless ridge with plenty of rocks.

I rolled into the shelter at 3:20PM. Todays 15.8 miles were quite tough, I'm happy to be done for the day.

Tomorrow I shall march to Deleware Water Gap, PA(DWG), where the PA AT will come to an end. The moment you step on the Deleware River Bridge, you are in NJ.

I am looking forward to NJ, mainly because it's not PA.

Time for tomorrow.

Good night, and good luck.

Kirby

Ga>ME 2008.

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