Day 63 – 70 | Grinding through Rocksylvania

Day 63 1179.2 – 1196.7 (17.7)

The morning started with a traverse through a valley that a beaver had dammed a stream in. The traverse took a little fancy footwork, balancing on logs to get across, but we got across unscathed. 

Pennsylvania is colloquially called “rocksylvania” and they started in full force today. 

It’s not that the rest of the trail doesn’t have rocks. It’s that for long miles the trail is just rocks. Rocks that look small but as you find out with a swift kick, you discover they are big unmovable rocks. If you miss kicking them, then they will remind you they are still there by being obnoxiously sharp. 480 million years old and as sharp as a tack.

We celebrated ending the day with pizza for dinner. We camped at the 501 shelter, close enough to a road and town that you can order delivery. Nothing screams hydration like a 2L bottle of Sprite. (There wasn’t water close to the shelter, so all us hikers ordered soda with our pizza to quench our thirst and fill our water bottles).

Day 64 1196.7 – 1216.6 (19.9)

We woke up and packed up tent, and enjoyed hanging around with Bartender, Fiddler, Olex, and others while eating breakfast. Around 9 am we caught up to them, just before a side trail leading to a swimming hole. We were delighted by the cool vibrant turquoise water and took turns on the rope swing. 

After the swimming hole the day was relatively uneventful. Water was sparse, it was hot, there were a lot of rocks.

For dinner we stopped at a shelter. The night before, some of the folks we had been hiking around had been been invited by a local to swim in their private lake, dinner, and hiked out with lots homemade freeze dried foods. Tally Jo shared some of the freeze dried “chicken of the woods” (a mushroom), which we loved trying. 

We hiked on a few miles and ran into the Boyz where we planned on camping. We fit our tent in and hung around the camp fire that evening, excited for town. 

Day 65 1216.6 – 1220.3 (3.7)

The few miles into town were fairly standard until the last section, which on the profile map looked like a cliff. It was close. 

We walked through Port Clinton, a small town on the Schuylkill River, and hitch hiked on route 61. Caught a ride with a local, who took us to the first destination of our planned Nearo, Cracker Barrel, for second breakfast. Scatter joined us and the Boyz. 

From there we walked to our hotel and dropped our packs. We crossed the freeway to the largest Cabela’s in the world, wandering aimlessly while looking at all the stuff we couldn’t buy because we couldn’t carry it. 

From there we walked to a cigar bar, ordering drinks and killing time until our room was ready. This was an ideal location, as it may have been harder for the patrons to smell us! We resupplied at the Walmart before walking back to the hotel. 

After shower and laundry, we headed down to the pub attached to the hotel, creating a massive hiker table of 20+ folks whom came to town for the July 4th holiday. 

Day 66 1220.3 – 1235.4 (15.1)

We slept in and hung out in the AC in the hotel until checkout. It was hot outside, and on our way out of town we had first lunch at Taco Bell.

The trail out of Port Clinton wasn’t quite as steep as coming into it, but it was much sweatier given the humidity. A few miles in, we caught up to Detour and took a dip in a stream. While drying off a day hiker offered us beers, which we gratefully accepted.

We hiked to Echville shelter, offered in the backyard of someones house. Our campsite was surrounded by ripe wineberries, so Sassafras enjoyed picking many as an evening snack.

Day 67 1235.4 – 1257.2 (21.8)

It was very hot today; there were lots of rocks and limited views. We saw our first copperhead of the trail on Knife’s Edge rocks, stopped in at Thunder Mountain Lodge for a mid-afternoon snack, and enjoyed trail magic of cold drinks in the late afternoon provided by two ’22 hikers, Poncho and Take it Easy. Buoyed by the trail magic, we hiked almost until dark and were pleasantly surprised to find Budweiser at our targeted tent site. He already had a fire going, so we cooked our dinner and joined him.

Day 69 1257.2 – 1277.3 (20.1)

The day was hard and long and hot and rocks, oh so many rocks.

After a few miles we dropped down the valley to cross over the Lehigh River. We skipped over the town of Palmerton. The climb out of the valley included some light rock climbing.

After gaining the ridge nothing eventful happened, except our soles and souls being slowly being ground down by the rocks. 

Day 69  1277.3 – 1297.4 (20.1)

The day went by slowly, knowing we would make it into Delaware Water Gap and be done with Pennsylvania. There weren’t any views, little water, but plenty of sweaty rocks. Turns out if it’s hot and humid enough water condenses on the rocks to make them slick. 

We were relieved to see the Delaware River and couldn’t wait to go down the last few miles into town. As we entered town, we were greeted with some fantastic trail magic. We were torn between continuing on to a shower and a full dinner and the generosity of the trail angel. Ultimately we decided to stop and sit in our stink just a little bit longer to chat with the trail angel, Vlobster, who is presently a caretaker at a shelter up north. We left with at least a days worth of food, a Sawyer Squeeze water filter gasket (which Sassafras desperately needed since hers was leaking), and a grateful heart. After a shower in the hotel room, we walked to Sango Kura, a sake brewery and noodle house. They put our instant ramen to shame with some fantastic ramen dishes. It hit the spot.