PA is Done! Again.

On the 11th I did 11.3 miles and stayed at the Doyle. On the 12th I did 11 miles and stayed at Peters Mountain shelter. On the 13th I did 22.8 miles and camped next to PA 72. On the 14th I did 18.4 miles and camped at Hertline Campsite. On the 15th I did 18.6 miles and camped at a free pavilion in Port Clinton. On the 16th I did 22.2 and stayed at the Allentown Hiking Club shelter. On the 17th I did 18 miles and stayed at the Jailhouse hostel in Palmerton. On the 18th I did 21.6 miles and camped just past PA 33. On the 19th I did 14.6 miles and stayed at the Church of the Mountain hostel in Delaware Water Gap.

I realize it's been a little while since my last update. This photo completely explains why I am not a big fan of the AT in Pennsylvania.

So the no shower and no laundry challenge was immediately ended the night of my last post because Doctor Zoom did a 43 mile day and got into camp at 4am to catch us. After that he wanted a few easy days so we did 11 miles into town and then 11 out of town too. This allowed his body to heal up a bit after the abuse he did to it and it also allowed us to stay at the Doyle.

The Doyle is an old hotel that has been in continuos operation for over 100 years. It is outrageously run down and in terrible shape but it has been sheltering hikers for decades and the owners are absolutely fantastic people. I have a photo of the building and then a decent shot of the owner.

After that enjoyable experience it was mostly just a hike through rocky woodland for days with stops in town every other day or so. It started with a couple solid days of rain and fog which made everything damp even if you weren't in the rain. One night I left my kilt hanging up in a shelter to hopefully dry it out a little and the next morning it was wetter. Good old mid Atlantic humidity. Here was the view for about three days.

Since then the weather as been much nicer but the trail has gotten much worse. The closer to New Jersey the trail gets in PA the worse the rocks get. Here are just some examples of how terrible it is.

These rocks just destroy your feet. After a few hours of hiking your feet just throb. At the end of the day I can just feel my feet pulsing when I am sitting in camp. It is quite the experience. I had basically no desire to hike PA a second time and I REALLY don't have a desire to do it a third time. I don't see myself doing another AT hike of massive miles again but I didn't really see myself doing a second either. Hopefully if I do anything like this again I make myself skip this state. The rocks also make nice spots for rattlesnakes. 

After the torture of walking the state you get to go to Delaware Water Gap. The church hostel here is amazing. It is completely donation based and every Thursday has a free hiker feed. Luckily I was here on that day and got a fantastic free meal out of it. Also Rosie decided she needed to photo bomb one of the photos but I'm still going to use it. It's an example of what the trail does to people minds after a while.

Well, it's on to NJ. The next few states should fly by and in no time I'll be in New England once again. Hopefully it is a little less humid there but I'm not counting on it.