Day 102, Wednesday June 9, 2021

         

 Hosea, Joel, Amos

Allentown Hiking Club shelter campsite to stealth campsite 5 miles south of Palmerton. 12.6 miles hiked today - 1255.0 total AT miles hiked to date.

Another low mileage day, as it was once again a tale of two trails.  I’m convinced that the designers of the AT deliberately provide a stretch of mellow, flat, obstacle free trail after particularly difficult sections to avoid mass defections from the trail.  After yesterday’s struggles, the first 6 miles this morning were about as flat and easy as I’ve seen.  Along the ridge line there were a couple of nice views and I was able to FaceTime family from one of them.  

Then it all changed, and once again I was faced with significant scrambles that slowed the pace down dramatically. Leaping from rock ledge to boulder top to teetering logs provided quite an exciting, but ultimately slow afternoon.  Compounding the usual heat and humidity was the relative scarcity of easily accessible water sources.  I had filled my water bag up before leaving this morning, so carried over 3 liters of water out from camp.  It’s a good thing, as I didn’t run into more water until just before stopping for the day.  There was no spring or creek nearby, but a trail angel had left 30 gallon jugs of water at the edge of a road crossing.

Tomorrow we hike into Palmerton for a shower, laundry and minor resupply, staying in the back yard of Squeek.  She is a former thru hiker who lets hikers pitch tents in her yard, use her bathroom/shower, and laundry- all for no charge.

I did want to mention something I had meant to cover earlier. I’m sure you’ve  heard of the 17 year cicadas.  We had been seeing them along the trail since Virginia, even had a few husks stuck to my tent.  I kept expecting to hear them loudly as I hiked or at night, but never did, or so I thought. Then last week, the Silver Goat told me that the low throbbing, humming noise we hear every morning was actually the cicadas making their noise.  To me, it sounded more like a flying saucer from a 50’s sci-fi movie. Who’d a thunk?  Now I know.

Until next time…