July 17

Another success story

After the late night party last night, we got a slow start this morning.  The hiking wasn't bad.  Flat terrain along the ridge.  Typical rocks, but not the super Pennsylvania style ones.  Still pretty hot outside though, and when we came out of the woods down to the road that goes into Wind Gap, Pa. I was sweating buckets again.  The consensus was that we wanted to go into town.  We soon got a hitch, and got dropped off at a shopping center that had a Chinese restaurant.  I had General Tso's chicken and an egg roll.  Then we all went to the grocery store to do some more resupply.  I didn't really need anything really, so I just picked up some donuts and Italian ices to snack on.  We got another hitch back to the trail.  I can't believe it.  We actually came into a town, ate lunch, resupplied, and didn't stay in town.  Impressive.  The climb out of Wind Gap was short, and we were soon back up onto familiar ridge walking.  I only left town with a liter of water. Bad idea.  I was trying to ration my water the whole way out of town.  The afternoon was dragging on.  It was hot, and rocky.  Surprise.  I just didn't feel like I was getting anywhere.  I stopped at a place that I saw in my guidebook and realized I was still about 5 miles away from the shelter.  Ugh.  About 2 miles after that, I ran out of water.  It was getting late in the afternoon.  I was really thirsty, but I think my brain kicked my body a supply of adrenaline.  I turned on some tunes in my earphones, and with a new burst of energy I was flying down the trail.  I stopped at a sign that said "Springer Mountain 1277".  Wow!  That felt great.  Around the next bend I had to hit the breaks all of a sudden.  Just in front of me was a young deer, a buck with velvety new antlers.  I waited for him to move off the trail, then kept cruising.  I got to Kirkridge shelter, threw off my pack, and headed up to the water source.  I immediately chugged 40 ounces.  Then I filled up 3.5 more liters and carried it down to the shelter.  Kokopelli and Brightflower were there.  It was good to hear that they did well over the rock climb yesterday.  Kokopelli said his dog, Dee Dee, had a blast climbing the rocks, and would find her own way up the mountain, often sitting there waiting on him to catch up.  Haha.  We saw in the guidebook that there was a campsite 0.3 miles ahead, with a view.  We had plenty of water so we pushed on.  What a good idea.  This spot was awesome.  There was a pretty nice sized clearing that looked down into the valley to the east.  I had my hammock strung up just on the edge of the clearing, at the edge of the slope.  The starts were out.  We saw the faint shimmer of a satellite pass overhead.  It's been a long time since I've been able to see the stars this clearly at night.  Turns out that we're leaving PA on a pretty good note.

Campsite just past Kirkridge shelter.