ROCKY V – BLUE MOUNTAIN

AT Day 075: Wednesday June 21,  2023

Mile 1260 +23 miles/37 km

Total Distance Hiked: 1283 miles/km

Outerbridge Shelter – Lehigh River – Route 248 – Blue Mountain – Blue Mountain Drive – Smith Gap Road – Leroy Smith Shelter – Wind Gap/Route 33 – Campsite

A:3402 ft /m  D: 2776 ft /2064 km 

Last night I slept with a mild level of anxiety. Hammer on the other hand fell asleep as soon as he was horizontal and slept quite soundly. I was awake for a couple of hours through the night. The sound of roaring traffic and worry about reported bear activity around the shelter made me nervous. I  wondered how the bears managed in this environment.   Squeezed in between a freeway down below and not very much open green space for them to forage and feed on and then we come along carrying an easy source of food. No wonder there are problems of interaction. But another part of the unease of camping so close to urban areas was seeing a couple of sketchy characters on trail yesterday. Definitely not people I’d want to camp near.  I wondered what it’s like for the homeless to sleep every night with  a level of anxiety about their safety. It’s not a nice way of being. 

We left our campsite around 6am and quickly descended down to Lehigh River which we crossed on a very busy bridge. What followed after the river crossing was a diabolical climb up Blue Mountain onto a ridge.   It was the most difficult climb that we’ve had. It really was not  hiking but almost vertical rock wall scrambling. Some of the rocks were loose and slippery. Definitely not  a section of trail to attempt in wet weather. It was such a relief to finish the climb with sweat dripping off my shirt and a thumping heart. Hammer was as cool as a cucumber scrambling up the mountain behind me.

On the ridgetop it was quite a pleasant and cool hike. Walking through a lot of small trees and the first Aspens we’ve seen on the trail. 

We were soon joined by another hiker who came up behind us.  His name was Terry we walked and talked about his hike and some of his travels. His wife is supporting him by driving a campervan along the trail. They meet up at the end of each day. We hiked together for a couple of hours. He had a most compelling life story which he was telling us about when Hammer realised that somehow we’ve been turned around and were hiking back south. Close to an hour  backtracking and we worked out the  mistake. There is a new section of trail which is not on our map so effectively we’ve hiked a loop around the old and new trail. A mistake that costs us  a couple of hours of hiking and added around 3+ miles to our hike without making any northward progress. We hiked with Terry for another hour before we stopped for lunch. I was so upset about this mistake I was almost in tears. 

My feet were sore from yesterday and each step today  on the rocky trail was bearable pain only because we were making progress. Our plan was to hike long today so that we have a short day into Delaware Waters Gap tomorrow where we planned to stay the night. Plus it was predicted to rain tomorrow and we were in a 20 mile dry stretch of trail. All the little bits added to the disappointment. 

The lunch break was good for me to regroup and put the error into perspective. If you are going to be doing extra miles might as well it be with interesting conversation and interesting company.   

The rest of afternoon, with Hammer in the lead, we recovered some of the lost ground emerging on Route 33 around 6.15. We were elated.

We filled up with  water at the nearby Gateway Motel and heading back on trail. At the trailhead carpark we met Sherpa and Snail supporting their brother Galileo who was through hiking. In the meantime they were providing trail magic to hikers.

Of course we stopped for a chat and some treats. Sherpa is from New Hampshire and his sister is a local. Other hikers we’ve crossed paths with over the last few days soon joined us. It was nice to swap stories of our day. It was almost 7pm when five of us, including Galileo headed off back on trail and the rest were going to a hostel at nearby Wind Gap. Rain was expected around 1am.