July 9, 2011
Start: 1216.7 Pulpit Rock Astronomical Park
End: 1247.1 Blueberry covered ridge.
Total: 30.4 miles!
It was a nice breezy night last night without any rain. Nights like this I can expect to be greeted in the morning with a dry tent. Somehow, water vapor did not feel like abiding by this rule though, and when I woke, everything inside and outside the tent was soaked. There must have been a nice cloud up here around me last night. No Lehigh valley amateur astronomers fortunately, who may have looked down on my camp site location. I guess though if they didn't want hikers camping there, they would have posted a sign. They are in a perfect spot, with a big grassy field. Everywhere else in the area is covered in boulders. They even have a really scary spider infested privy with a ceiling that would be perfect for a five foot tall hiker.
Back to the trail, a hiker whose name eludes me is having breakfast which was last nights dinner which she hated but couldn't bring herself to bury at the shelter where she stayed a little over a mile back. It sounded delicious though, beans, cheese, and rice. Pink Floyd, with a Dark side of the Moon hat and fluorescent pink duct tape, covered poles showed up, and soon Rolling Stone. Funny they weren't hiking together.
I hike on and soon catch Pink Floyd, who didn't stop, and we start hiking and chatting. He really wants to design a shot based off White Russians. He also informs me that you can make vanilla sugar by placing a vanilla bean in a tub of sugar, then leaving it there a while. This he is planning on using to line the rim of his White Russian based shot, just like a Margarita glass is salted.
We hike incredibly fast as the trail turns to nice smooth tread on an old dirt road. The morning trail is rushing by and I make ten by 11:30. I believe I can go into Walnutport, Pa. tonight, thirty three miles away, eat at the King Palace Chinese Buffet, resupply, and head back to the trail. Smooth sailing continues into the early afternoon, then the rocks start. Pennsylvania is known for its rocky stretches of trail, and I'm entering one. Some qualifies as scrambling, and on one knife edge of highly angled strata reminiscent of where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn, a fall off the narrow purchases afforded to you by the rock would be tragic.
Today water is also scarce made more so by poor signage, I run out for a while and am low all day. The Bake Oven Knob shelter supposedly has springs on a trail leading down below it. The shelter is crowded with weekend backpackers, and tents are all around. Its three hours too early to stop, I'm here for water. The springs are dry below the shelter, so I descend the steep path down for half a mile to a beautiful one and drink two liters at the spring.
It takes an hour all together to leave the shelter and continue on, and my hopes of China buffet tonight die. My new plan is to camp up on this ridge before the trail descends to the valley below, and let the breeze dry my wet tent. As my goal of doing thirty miles then looking for a site approaches, I spot a large black bear northbounding the Appalachian trail just ahead of me, unaware that a determined piece of hiker trash is coming up on his tail. I yell at him to get out of my way, and he just looks at me like, huh? So, I yell and swear at him and raise my arms above my head, then he trots a bit down the trail. I repeat this process again until he finally gets out of my way.
I walk fifteen more minutes, then find a nice breezy spot to camp surrounded by blueberries. I actually camp on blueberries bushes that are taking over an old camp site. They'll be fine. I hope the bear doesn't continue walking this way, or he will be here in a few minutes to check out the beef Souper Ramen I got at a truck stop a few days ago. Deliciously filled with MSG.
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