Super Hiker Woman (Trying Anyway)

June 30-17.9 miles-Allentown Shelter to Dave and Squeak’s in Palmerton-AT mile 1260.3 Now for today... As you might expect by now, the rocks continued. First we had to do a little thing called Knife Edge. Seriously, who planned this trail??? Dusty and Sure Foot up ahead Andy doing a great job on the rocks.  See the white blazes? The going up, while scary, was not too bad. The going down was absolutely terrifying. Dusty grabbed my pack so I could slide down most of it on my butt (sorry, no photos of that horribleness). I did not enjoy that at all!  Then we’d have a bit of actual trail before coming to the next pile of rock crap, then another, and another. I came to dread climbing up, because it seemed to always end with a pile of big rocks.  Bake Oven Knob (definitely not an Easy Bake Oven) The view from Bake Oven Knob.  On one of the last piles, Sure Foot took a tumble when his pack hit a big branch and sent him backwards. He’s got some abrasions, and he’ll be sore tomorrow, but he’s o

June 29-16.5 miles-Windsor Furnace Shelter to Allentown Hiking Center Shelter-AT mile 1242.4 I could have written and uploaded this post yesterday, but I was just too tired and wrung out. So I’m writing this tonight (June 30) from my tent in the backyard of a trail angel in Palmerton, PA. I’ll explain how that happened in the next post.  So, the morning started out pretty easy. There was a climb up to The Pulpit and the Lehigh Valley Astronomical Observatories.  There were rocks, but kind of stair stepped.  The Observatories The view from The Pulpit.    The trail was okay for awhile. I stopped for a snack and looked at Guthook. I saw I was just .4 from another view called The Pinnacles. I only ate half of my snack, deciding to eat the other half at the view. I was walking along, and I thought I was probably getting close. I looked at my phone again. I was .4 past the view! Now, I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing when I’ve gone a few tenths of a mile. There was no way, in the amount of

June 28-14.7 miles-Eagle’s Nest Shelter to Windsor Furnace Shelter-AT mile 1225.9 Today was a much better day than yesterday. Yes, the rocks are still a big part of our day, but when we only have to do 14.7 miles, it’s much more doable. The heat and humidity was also very present today, but I didn’t seem to be bothered by it that much.  Some weed whacking would be nice.  Ah yes, the ever present rocks. Are you tired of seeing rock photos? Well, I’m tired of taking rock photos! Besides the shorter mileage, what made the day oh so much better, was coming into Port Clinton (well, the coming in part wasn’t so great as it was a very steep downhill). Trust me, it was steep.  Here’s where we popped out.   We had planned to have lunch at the Firehouse Co. restaurant, but they appeared to not be open. As we were walking down to the hotel (which had food), we passed by a soda machine on the side of the road, in front of someone’s house.  Yay for random soda machines! It was .75/can. Such a deal!

June 27-17.2 miles-Pine Grove to Eagle’s Nest Shelter-AT mile 1211.2 This morning we looked out the window of the hotel to see it was raining. It stopped before we caught the shuttle back to the trail, but started again for awhile while we were hiking.  Not raining here yet.  Because it had rained, I saw a few of my little orange friends.  Look! A twofer! We were supposed to have a couple of views in the first two miles.  Nope, no view today. The rocks were out in full force today.  There actually wasn’t too many sections like this. Mostly, it’s the smaller ankle-busting, foot-killers. They were not fun. I started out being really careful to protect my feet. I step as much as possible on flat areas. In many areas there just aren’t any flat areas.  Sure Foot and I got to the 1200 mile mark (Dusty was, per the usual, ahead). Flat Will and LB And me too. You can see I have my rain jacket on. It rained again for awhile. I was able to take it off at lunch.  Sure Foot and I stopped at the on

June 26-11.9 miles-campsite to Pine Grove, PA-AT mile 1194.1 Day 100? It doesn’t seem like it’s been 100 days! That’s more days than my nearly 4000 mile bike tour from Minneapolis to Bar Harbor and back! Sheesh, walking sure takes a long time! Today was a go-to-town day, so we were up at the “Dusty Hour” of 5:00. We had 11.9 miles to our pick up to go into Pine Grove. At first the trail went through a field, getting our feet wet.  Swish swish through the grass (that’s Dusty ahead). Then, we came through a State Park, and had to cross a creek on a precarious tightrope of a log.  There goes Dusty, skipping across like it’s nothing.  Here’s me. Yes, it looks like I’m about to complete a circus move. I was stuck in this position for a very long time (I could hear the drumroll in my head...I would have been able to hear the gasping of the audience, except Dusty was laughing so much). Finally, I was able to move my back foot to the next step down (it was far trickier than it looks).  We had

June 25-15.2 miles-campsite to campsite-AT mile 1182.2 Today was not an exciting day...no views to speak of, more rocks (but not the kind we have to climb), and a fair amount of mud.  A bit of trail magic just after crossing a road, but nothing I needed or wanted.  Rocks going up Using rocks to make bridges (plenty of rocks to go around in PA). At one point, I came to a campsite. Around the fire ring were seats made from rocks. Well...even though it was a bit early, I just had to take advantage! It was hard to leave this wonderful chair! Sure Foot enjoying a chair too.  Just after lunch, we had to take an alternate route to avoid a beaver dam that has flooded the trail. This has been the case since 2018. I don’t know why they don’t just reroute the trail permanently.  We walked along this bike path, then up a forest road back to the trail.  We went up and over a small mountain. We were aiming for a campsite that was near water. We found the water. It wasn’t a very strong flow, but we w

June 24-18 miles-Duncannon to a campsite-AT mile 1167 One more selfie this morning with our Trail Saint, Steve (l to r, me, Blueberry, Fantastic, Green Bean, Chilly, Dusty, and Sure Foot). The three of us headed out together. We thanked Steve profusely for his kindness. It was really a treat! We had to walk all the way through Duncannon. We walked past the AT icon of The Doyle.  The place looked a bit rundown. It’s reputation is that it is a terrible place to stay (bedbugs). We stayed...far away.  Once through town we crossed a couple of rivers, the Juanita, and the mighty Susquehanna.  The Susquehanna  We were finally back on actual trail after the river. We had a pretty good climb. There was even a view at one point.  Shortly after the first view, we started the rocks.  We had begun the rocks of Rocksylvania! Dusty was ahead when I came to a rather technical downhill rock climb. She grabbed my poles for me. From there we decided to stick together for the day (actually, as long as we’