(PA Route 248 (mile 1260.1) - Leroy Smith Shelter (mile 1276.1))

I woke up this morning a little before 8am. My goal for the morning was to spend time contacting apartments and rental agencies in Tuscaloosa. To do this, I wanted to find a space where I could charge my devices, browse online apartment listings, and make phone calls. Fortunately, there was a Dunkin Doughnuts across the street from Squeak's house so I made my way over with Side Hustle and Sketchbook. To my disappointment, the seating area was roped off, so I ordered a half dozen doughnuts and returned to Squeak's.

Side Hustle and Sketchbook made their way back to the trail while I did a small resupply. I then did apartment research in Squeak's backyard, contacting a couple promising rental places. After feeling satisfied with the morning's productivity, I asked Squeak when she could take me back to the trail. She told me that she was in a meeting but that we would leave as soon as she was done.

About an hour and a half later, Squeak emerged into the backyard and announced that we were ready to go. I grabbed my pack and we headed towards her tan Lincoln. When we reached her car, we were dismayed to discover that she had a VERY flat tire. She asked if I knew how to change a tire and I told her I did, but when we opened the trunk to fetch the spare, we found that it had severely dry rotted and was unusable. Squeak said her husband should be home in 30 minutes or so. In the meantime, she would contact some of her friends to see if they could drive me to the trail.

While I was waiting for Squeak to find me a ride, I discovered a very promising lead on Apartments.com. Most of the apartments in Tuscaloosa seem to fall into two bins. Either decrepit dumps with gross carpet or soulless new developments with grey linoleum floors. This one was different. The listing was for a number of apartments in a big, old house in historic Tuscaloosa. The house had been converted to eight independent one bedroom apartments, ranging from $800-900/month. The location was awesome. It was a 20-minute walk from the biology building and only a couple blocks from a grocery store and the main commercial strip downtown.

After maybe 15 minutes - and before I could respond to the listing - Squeak announced that she had found me a ride. Soon, an older woman arrived in a black SUV with handicap tags. She introduced herself as "Laura" and I thanked her for volunteering to take me to the trail. Laura dropped me off at ABC Heating and Cooling on PA Route 248, across the bridge from where I got picked up. This was fine with me because it meant I did not have to complete the nearly half mile road walk.

The time was about 1pm and I was hoping to hike 16 miles to the first shelter out of town. I knew this stretch of trail was going to be tough. The climb out of town was supposedly at times a hand over hand rock scramble. Once I made it onto the ridge, I would be hiking along a designated "Superfund Site." This area was so polluted by zinc smelting that it has been completely fenced off for over a decade to allow for revegitation. There also happens to be no on-trail water sources - that are not polluted with insane levels of heavy metals - for 20 miles. So as I began the climb from Palmerton, I was carrying about 6 pounds of water, which I hoped would be enough to get me 16 miles to the shelter where I could access a spring down a steep side trail.

As I began hiking out of town, I composed a response to the listing for the cool old apartment. The climb was indeed steep and rocky. Fortunately, I was able to send the message before the trail got too crazy. soon though, I found myself climbing up steeply graded rock walls on all fours. To date, this is the most technical climbing I have done on trail and I would certainly hesitate to call it "hiking" - more like "bouldering." 😅 Despite the challenge, the climb was a lot of fun and the views were spectacular.

Eventually, I made it to the ridge and found myself overlooking Palmerton. Before I left town, Squeak had given me an assignment which she called the "Squeak Challenge." I was supposed to try and find her house from the ridge and send her a picture. It took me a while, but I eventually located the nearby Dollar General and finally found Squeak's house. I sent her a picture and she responded that I had earned eternal glory.

After 4 miles I reached a set of powerlines where I missed a sharp turn in the trail and continued along a gravel road for a few minutes. I pretty quickly realized that something was wrong and doubled back to find the trail. I think this is the first time I lost the trail and I was briefly very annoyed with myself. Fortunately, I corrected the mistake quickly and only lost a bit of time.

For the next 12 miles I hiked along the same ridge, encountering a timber rattlesnake and a large rat snake. Otherwise, the afternoon was pretty uneventful. The rocks seemed to stay at a fairly consistent level of "mildly annoying" so I spent much of the day staring at my feet. I reached the shelter a little before 8pm. My feet were sore and I was surprised at how tired I felt despite only having hiked 16 miles. I set up my tent and ate dinner while chatting with Aspen, Strap-on, and Trivia.

Tomorrow I am planning for another short day. From where I am camped, I have 20 miles to Delaware Water Gap, where I'm meeting AC in two days. So I'm thinking I'll probably hike another 16 miles or so and try to find a nice tentsite tomorrow night.

Pennsylvania rocks

20 mile water carry

zinc polluted ridge