Rocks

Blog

We left 501 shelter with the goal of getting to a road crossing 9.8 miles away before 11:30am to met up with my (LEGO's) two sisters, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. We saw them drive up as we walked into the pull-off. What great timing. They took us to a grocery store and to a combined A&W and Long John Silvers. It was so nice to see family members again even if only for a few hours. They dropped us back off and then we finished the day with another 5.9 miles to Eagles Nest Shelter. This was also the first day in five days that the temperature and humidity was reasonable and not out of control. At the shelter we met a very nice section hiker named John (didn't catch the last name) who had just recently learned about the trail and was out on his first overnight hike. It was really cool talking with him. Good luck on future hikes John, if you're reading this.

On the 3rd, we woke up to much cooler weather (maybe high 50s) which was a nice surprise. Early on in to the day we hiked through the small town of Port Clinton, PA which we were hoping would have denatured alcohol for our stove. They didn't but about a mile down a four lane highway was a Walmart so Redwood hanged tight with the packs while I (LEGO) walked the extra 1.8 miles there and back (Redwood is very thankful). Pennsylvania is known for it's rocks and today we started to see way. There were many short sections where you are walking across large boulders. So you can imagine after 23.8 miles to Eckville Shelter our feet were killing us.

The next day from the first minute to the last we were walking on rocks. It may not been the best idea to go 24.2 miles to George W. Outerbridge Shelter, but we did. The rocks came in many different forms but none felt great on the feet. Large boulder piles, small pointy rocks sticking out of the ground, medium sized loose stone on the trail, all of it was horrible. For a normal day, the terrain profile looked great but on rocks we move at half speed so this was a long and painful day.

Unfortunately the 5th was not much better than the pervious day. More rocks than we know what to do with. Because of poorly placed shelters we choose to go 16.7 to Leroy A. Smith Shelter rather than the 30.5 to the next one. We had the option to camp in between but water in PA is somewhat sparse and is mostly located at shelters so we often have little choice of where we stay. Have I mentioned that our feet really hurt and we hate these rocks and cannot wait to get to New Jersey (didn't think I'd ever say that in my life).

We had been warned that the trail continued to be rocky until the Delaware Water Gap and this made it very hard to leave the shelter this morning (June 6th). However knowing that we were heading to town was a big motivator especially since a friend of my (LEGO's) uncle and aunt's was going to pick us up and take us to his place for the night. The day actually started out okay. We made it about 13.8 miles in just over 5 hours which is an amazing accomplishment considering how many rocks there were--yet again. Somewhere along the way though, probably around 2 hours into the day, our feet starting hurting and haven't stopped completely even now 6 hours after we stopped hiking. To really make you understand how bad the rocks are and how much we hate them we'll say it again: we are so glad to get out of PA and into NJ. I bet it's actually quite pretty in PA but you can't enjoy any of the scenery because you have to look down at your feet all day to avoid the rocks (and by that I mean step on the least pointy looking ones because you can't avoid them all). And no matter what you do your feet will hurt anyway. We won't miss the rocks.

We stopped for lunch at that shelter then hiked the last 6.4 miles in the Delaware Water Gap. We only stopped there briefly (we're going back tomorrow) then walked across the I-80 bridge into NJ where we were picked up by Carmen at the visitor center. We stopped for a delicious Italian dinner and a food resupply then went back to Carmen's house in NJ to do laundry, shower, and spend the night before heading back to the trail tomorrow morning.

That's it for now.

LEGO & Redwood