Day 24: It’s So Dang Hot!!!

Summary

May 19th

Stealth site to Lehigh Gap

NOBO mile# 1257.9

Tolmann’s daily mileage 10.6

Tolmann’s total mileage 234.2

Woke up extra early, hungry and thirsty, half a liter of water to get me the ~3 miles to the Bake Oven Knob Shelter, which was the next water source. Packed up quickly, ate a few handfuls of gorp, and was walking by 6:30. 

First part of the day was fairly easy, with some rock hopping and a view or two. 

Eventually I got to the road and parking area for Bake Oven Knob. I took off the pack and sat for a while to see if Hops and Tilley might catch up.   Looking more and more like a mountain man…

Just as I got up to saddle back up, a young couple pulled in and started up the trail to the Knob, carrying nothing but an iced coffee, and were soon lost to view. As I followed up the increasingly rocky path, I was accutely aware of the weight of my pack, and the heat of the day, and my diminishing water. 

Bake Oven Knob is a rock/boulder scramble, with a few places one needs to put down the poles and climb down backwards. My pace, and time itself, slowed to a crawl. 

Finally I got past the rocks. A short time later I saw the shelter roof down an unmarked side trail. First order of business was to filter 4 liters of water, first for drinking, then I made up some granola with powdered milk for a mid morning breakfast. 

I heard voices up on the trail, turned and saw the young couple from earlier. She asked, “How do we get back to our car?” I thought, “Jeez, they turned the wrong way on the trail. Now they have to climb back up and over the Knob. That’s a tough break!” I told them to go back the way they had come, following the white blazes. They turned back, but seemed pretty distressed. I thought they might run into Tilly and Hops, and they would reinforce that they were headed the right way. 

As I was finishing breakfast (and filtering my last liter of water), Tilly and Hops came tooling in. They (and Lesley and Lorraine) had indeed seen the Tripoli Campsite and decided not to camp there, probably sometime after me. They had camped in the same camp I had seen after Tripoli. 

After a little while I began to get packed up, when Lesley and Lorraine showed up. But I had already been at the shelter for more than an hour, so felt the need to get moving. Tilley, Hops and I made a plan to meet up in Lehigh Gap to stay the night at the Bert’s Restaurant Hostel. I thought it would work best to meet up at the George Overbridge Shelter, just a mile from the road. 

The rest if the day was just walking in the hot, hot sun. That kind of weather just sucks the energy from a person. 

I found a shady spot with a view at a place the trail intersected a power line. 

The trail through the cleared area was a significantly challenging rock scramble. These rocky areas really slow me down. 

Then it was some miles of slow ascents and descents on mixed terrain, across high meadows, with little escape from the sun. 

Then it was the long climb down to the shelter. I took a few rest breaks, and a NOBO hiker caught me up and we talked for a bit. We leapfrogged a couple of times. One of the places I rested was a campsite with an interesting lattice of branches that maybe would support a tarp to make a lean-to. It reminded me of a frame for a sweat lodge. There was a contractor’s bucket/pail that I used as a seat. I think I fell asleep for 5 or 10 minutes sitting there listening to birdsong.

Then I was up and reached the shelter shortly thereafter. It was very hot and what little breeze there was was more of a tease than anything else. It’s amazing how insensitive to weather living life mostly indoors makes us. Even the daily/hourly/minute-to-minute variations in temperature have huge effect on me, with no place to escape out here. 

Not long after I got the shelter, my friends arrived, and then it was down the final mile to the road and our ride to the hostel.

We called the hostel, then had to wait as our ride battled rush hour traffic to come get us. There was no shade in the parking lot, and we were a little impatient.  
But eventually, “Olive’s Human” (or Robert; Olive is the dog Robert hiked with) and Olive came by and we were off to dinner (bacon double cheeseburger, onion rings, root beer, and creamsicle milk shake), a shower, and laundry. Heaven! 

Due to the late-ish arrival in town, we’ve decided to zero tomorrow to give us some time to resupply and reorganize our packs. The climb out of Lehigh Gap brings us into a Super Fund site where they had been mining and refining zinc for 100 years, ending in the 1980’s. There is no safe water for a while, so I want to take some time to consider/research the strategy for the next few days. 

Something less than 40 miles left in PA!