Day 92: Down and out of Lehigh Gap

Okay, but last night it interrupted my sleep. Not from the rain or the wind, but from the aggressive, uneven snoring of someone in the shelter. Every time, it never fails, there is always a bad snorer in every shelter. Such is life.

The viewpoint

We got going a little after 7am and headed to the Lookout Hostel to pick up a package from me. We had 4 miles of hiking before we got there and it may have been the easiest 4 miles of hiking on the trail yet! Very crispy and flat without rocks. We arrived at the hostel and met Yard Sale, one of the people who runs it.

I grabbed my package and then we took advantage of some of the hostel’s other offers. We threw all our wet clothes that were thrown into the dryer yesterday while we charged our devices and drank a cold soda. They had a great setup at the hostel and we ended up staying longer than planned. Before taking off, we met up with Crazy Hair, the other person who runs the lodge, and got information about the upcoming sections of the trail. But after 1.5 hours we finally made it back to the trail, albeit now in dry clothes!

The edge of the knife

The edge of the knife

Back on the trail, the first mile remained fairly uneventful until we finally reached some rock gardens that we needed to navigate. These piled up until we climbed Knife’s Edge, the crème de la crème of rock climbing in Pennsylvania. After descending from Knife’s Edge, which fortunately didn’t last long, we continued navigating through some rock gardens until the trail leveled out once again. In quick order we covered several more miles until we reached Bake Oven Knob.

There we ran into another large rock field that was quite technical and slowed us down drastically. While my ankle has felt better today, it still hurts quite a bit and doesn’t like the abuse it takes on these rock fields. After the rock fields, it was only a quarter mile to the Bake Oven Knob Shelter, where Shooter and I had lunch. Shortly after we started lunch, Big Stick joined us as well. We had a good lunch and unfortunately our streak of overly long lunches continued as we took longer than planned.

Leaving lunch we started with some nice cruising terrain for about a mile before switching to another rock garden. After dealing with the rock garden for a bit, we transitioned to an open area under power lines where the rock garden became a small rock field. It took me a little while to figure out how to get through, but I eventually dove back into the woods and soon after found a water tank provided by Mary Poppins. This was a pleasant surprise as there are not many water sources along this ridge and the few that exist you have to go down to get to. Filled with water again, I continued with a slightly better trail.

Lehigh Gap

The rest of the afternoon I trudged through fern-covered forests in all directions. I finally shot up a ridge with small plants and a sparse collection of trees.

To my left I could see the river below me and the towns along its banks. I followed that ridge for about a mile before plunging sharply into Lehigh Gap. During the descent I also ran into this little guy.

At the end of the gap, I walked a short way across the river over a bridge and up a path before re-entering the forest. To start, I had a moderately steep climb before it turned into a steep and close scramble.

I put away the trekking poles and climbed hand in hand, zigzagging up the mountainside for more than 500 feet of elevation gain. At times it was quite exhilarating, while at others it was painstakingly slow. But as I approached the top I had a great view of the river and valley below me, as well as a nice breeze cooling my now sweaty self.

I soaked in the views for a moment, watching the vultures catch thermals and the nonsense of traffic. Once at the top of the descent or once again, continue hiking along the ridge with minimal elevation loss. The first stretch along the ridge was quite rocky before giving way to relatively hilly terrain for the last two kilometres. I arrived at the tent site around 8:30pm, quickly set up my tent, re-bandaged my leg, and got ready for bed before chatting with the rest of our group about our plans for tomorrow.

Day 92 Statistics:

23.1 miles

2,940′ ascent, 3,005′ descent

Allentown Hiking Club Tent Site Shelter

0 DSLC…

Stove use times: 14

Snakes seen on the trail: 15

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