Days 63-74

From Boiling Springs to Delaware Water Gap, the end of Pennsylvania

Day 63

We got ready and checked out of Allenbury this morning but before we left town we had to hit up the lunch buffet. We did and didn't regret it, I filled up my plate with salmon, grilled chicken, and a huge piece of roast beef. After stuffing ourselves, we hit the trail at noon.

We hiked 14 miles to Darlington Shelter. It was essentially flat all day until a climb up the hill to the shelter. We waited through some very pretty farmland today and we saw our first monarch of the season. 

Tomorrow we're stopping in Duncannon PA as planned to fill up on food for the rest of the week.

Day 64

Another great day in Pennsylvania! We hiked 19.6 miles to Clark Ferry Shelter. On the way we stopped in Duncannon and got enough food for the next 4 days to get us to Pine Grove where we'll get more food. We've decided with all the towns that we're passing, it makes sense to carry less weight in food and resupply more frequently so that we cover more ground. Lighter packs are always better, 

We decided today that when we get out of PA and into New Jersey and New York that we're going to catch a bus up to Maine and hike from Katahdin down back to New York. This makes sense to us because we're doing a flip/flop anyways so we've got no commitment to hiking the trail in one direction. Also, we want to catch Maine and New Hampshire while their still some what warm. So we'll figure out all the transportation details over the next few weeks. 

Today we began the rocky section of PA. Pennsylvania is infamously known as rocksylvania because you can go  miles without putting your feet on a single patch of dirt. "it's where boots go to die", or so they say. It was not so bad today but I imagine it will get much worse as we make our way further up the state. 

Day 65

We hiked 17.4 mils today. The section today was 99% ridgeline walking with long stretches of nothing. These empty stretches with no landmarks are hard mentally because you have nothing to really look at and it drags forever. 

I called MSR at one of the views we had lunch at and they said they'd replace my tent poles for free. They've been cracking since i got them. 

We made it to Rattling Run Creek at about 6:30 pm. It is one of the few water sources that we passed today. Other then being rocky, Pennsylvania is known for it's dried up streams and springs in the summer months. We went 12 miles today without seeing any sources, but we were prepared and filled up this morning. Camping alone tonight, hopefully we'll sleep well and safe. 

Day 66 

Another flat day, We planned for 7 miles to give ourselves a break, but we got done by 1 pm and felt that if we did another 5 miles, it would set us  up better to hit town tomorrow, rather than doing it the following day. So we chilled and ate lunch for about an hour. I got to soak my feet in the river, And we were on our way, 

We are staying at a campsite about a mile out of Lickdale, PA. Hiked 12.8 miles and had camp set up by 5 pm. We're not used to this much downtime. 

Cathrine is figuring out the details on getting to Maine. I collected a ton of firewood and already have it burning. This last resupply I bought nothing but candy for my lunches, it hasn't worked out too well. We're excited to hike 12 miles and catch a ride to Pine Grove, PA and eat some real good tomorrow.

Day 67

Today was a scorcher, in the 90's, but we managed to crank out a quick 12 miles. Flat ridgeline walking all day  We were leapfrogging with a hiker named Ronin all day, he usually does 20+ miles, but he recently hurt (fractured I believe) his ankle and has been taking it easier. On the last 2 miles before the 501 shelter we came up on him and he was struggling, could barely take a step. I carried his pack the last 1.5 miles to the shelter, along with my pack. His had to be double the weight of mine. 

When we got to the shelter ( at about 3pm), we called a shuttle and shared it with  Ronin into Pine Grove. He was headed to the motel to rest his ankle for a few days. Cathrine and I got dropped off at the laundromat. It's amazing what clean clothes will do for your your moral. While we were waiting, we resupplied on food as planned- 2 days and 1 night of food to get us to Hamburg. I also went and picked up a pizza from across the street.

After laundry was done we waited around for the movie theatre to open at 7 pm. It was a cozy little place but was really cool. We saw Planet of the Apes with a bowl of popcorn and a soda for $6 each. Cathrine cornered a group of people after the movie and bullied one of them into giving us a ride. His name was Kyle, he was very quiet spoken and helped us out tremendously. We made it back to 501 shelter by 9:15 pm. hiking 15 miles tomorrow. 

Day 68

we finally hit the Pennsylvania rocks toady. It sucked. The 15 mile walk we did was on completely flat terrain, it was a pretty chill day. We agreed that today was the most boring day of hiking we've had so far. I carried a can of chunky soup all day so that didn't help either. We got to camp at about 7 pm. Headed to Hamburg, Pa tomorrow to hopefully get a hotel room and relax.

Day 69

Today was a long one. The 9 mile hike into town was smooth and went by quickly, We ended u getting a room at the Port Clinton Motel, that was our first mistake. On the way our into town we ran into Derrick and some other hikers, they told us that the hotel was not hiker friendly. We decided that we didnt have another options besides hiking on and skipping town, but we needed to resupply on food so we stayed. We said our goodbyes to Derrick who is going to continue hiking north to Katahdin even after Cathrine and I get a bus up there to hike south.

This is the grimiest hotel yet. The hotel front desk doubles as a full service bar and nobody was friendly, which set the stage for the rest of the day. 

Since there is absolutely nothing in Port Clinton, Cathrine and I decided to head towards Hamburg about 7 miles away. We were unable to hunt down a ride to get there and all the shuttle services in the area hung up on me. We decided to walk the 3 miles. 

It took about an hour, but once in town we went straight for Wendy's and gorged ourselves. We got some candy from the Russell Stover's store, then headed to Cabela's the "REI of the north" and got some new gear. I got a new fancy headlamp (my old cheap one broke 2 nighs ago) and some boot laces ( my old ones broke about 2 weeks ago) to replace the paracord I've been using as laces. Cathrine got new shorts and a fork. 

We walked across town to the Walmart and resupplied on food, then walked back to Cabela's to try and score a ride. No luck. So we started on the 3 mile walk back to Port Clinton. On the way out of town we stopped by Red Robin so I could treat Cathrine to the virgin Pina Colada she's been craving. 

We made it back to Port Clinton by 7 pm and sat down and watched a train pass by us while we ate fruit. We are worn out debated staying another night here and if the employees were a little friendlier we probably would. Essentially everyone we interacted with today was very rude and that's very draining on our morale.

 

Day 70

We wanted a zero today, but I'm glad we didn't take it. We were on the trail by 9 am and had a great day. 

The stretch today is  popular spot for day hikers and it being a Saturday, there were even more people out. Seeing so many people was a nice change from the empty stretches we've been doing the past week and it was good for our morale.

We hung out at two really good views today and saw a copperhead at one of them. Our first venomous snake sighting on the trail.

We hiked 14.8 miles and are tentning by the eckville shelter, we got here at 4:45 ish. This shelter is one of the better ones. 

Day 71

Even more rocks today. For the first 7 miles of hiking i'd bet only about a mile of them were spent walking on the dirt, the other six were spent hopping across boulder fields or tiptoeing over small jagged rocks. We went a total of 13.4  to a place called New tripoli Campsite, we planned to go 4  miles further to the next shelter, but the scarcity of water through this section had us play it on the safe side and set up where we know there is reliable water. 

On the way here we discovered a restaurant, The Blue Mountain Summit B & B, about .2 down one of the roads we crossed. So we walked down and got some burgers for dinner.

Tonight we're here with an older woman and gentleman " The Bleep" and "Beaker". We met them on the trail yesterday. He is a scout leader and her son is in his troop, they're not together, but they're hiking a section from Port Clinton to Delaware Water Gap. They are very nice. 

A good storm is moving in, I bought the, Walk Two Moons, audiobook on my phone a few nights ago so we look forward to listening to that some more. 

Day 72

Today was another one of full of rocks. The first half of the day was spent bouldering over huge rocks, climbing up and down them. The awesome views like at Bake Oven Knob made the rock scrambles much more worth it. I actually found the rock scarambles to be kind of fun, the bigger the rocks, the more of a challenge, the more fun they are. Cathrine disagrees. I think the bigger rocks are definitely less aggravating than the small, constant, sharp ones.

We hiked 12 miles to where we would hitch into Palmerton, PA. Once we got to the road, we decided we would look at our map to determine where we would go once we got a ride thumbed down. Before we even had our books open a car full of ladies, a mom, her daughter, and the grandmother honked and waved at us. We waved back and I stuck out my thumb and it looked like they were motioning for us to jump in. So we jumped in. They were very caught off guard because they were not in fact motioning for us to jump in. But they were very friendly locals and gave us a ride into town anyway. 

Tonight we're staying at the Jailhouse Hostel. We imagined it would be old jail cells converted into bunks for a hostel. What it actually is the basement of the town hall filled with bunks. It's free though and it'll do.

We got here at about 4pm and lazied around the city all day. We actually ran into the mother and daughter who gave us a ride earlier today outside of the Family Dollar. We laughed about how we forced our way into the car.

The jailhouse is full with about 20 people here, hopefully the snoring doesnt get too loud. 15 miles tomorrow.

Day 73

We were up and ready to hit the trail by 10am today. We planned to hitch a ride out of town back to where we got picked up off the trail yesterday. We got antsy and ended up hiking a side trail that we thought would take us back to where we left off, but it didnt. The 1.5 mile side trail me back up with the A.T. up on top of the mountain which was a rough climb out of Lehigh Gap. We got to the top and realized the side trail cut out about a mile and a half of the A.T. So we got to the same place in about the same amount of distance, but skipped 1.5 A.T. miles. We intend to hike every bit of the trail and debated walking (or climbing in the case) down the mountain on the A.T. and hiking back up. We decided that since we are hiking back down to to Delaware Water Gap from Maine, we could hike the 1.5 mile section that we skipped out of Lehigh Gap when we get picked up later on.

The rest of the day was non stop rocks - the small, sharp ones, that all seem to point up. Non stop. All day. The Pennsylvania rocks are not over rated.

About 5 miles from the shelter we came upon a parking lot where a girl and her dad were sitting in lawn chairs and had their trunk open full of goodies for hikers. All kinds of fruit, mac and cheese casserole, pigs in blankets, and a cooler full of sodas. It was awesome. We pigged out and hung out with them for a good while. 

We hike 15.5 miles today on the A.T., I made a fire and we hung out with Beaker and The Bleep, the 2 section hikers we've been hiking with since Port Clinton. Cathrine and I are gonna do a 20 miles into Delaware Water Gap tomorrow.

We hit our 800 mile mark today.

Day 74

We hiked 20.5 miles today and made it to Delaware water Gap at about 8pm. We got a really late start sleeping in and didnt hit the trail until about 10:30, I'm surprised we didnt end up hiking in the dark.

It was another day full of rocks, non stop rocks. After going 13 miles, we cooked some Ramen and said goodbye to our friends Beaker and The Bleep who were going to stay a night there. They hung with us since Port Clinton and put in some serious mileage on some difficult terrain. The Bleep did especially good, it being her first long distance backpacking trip We hiked 7 more miles into Delaware Water Gap and checked into The Church of the Mountain Hostel. Its a donation based hostel run by a Presbyterian church that is pretty cool. We are tenting in the backyard and are probably gonna take a zero in a hotel tomorrow to take some time and figure out our game plan to get to Maine