Hiking the Northern Half of PA on the AT

A nice view from the AT in Pennsylvania

     A couple of days after our trip to St Thomas ended we headed for Duncannon PA to hike some more of the Appalachian Trail. After arriving late afternoon at the campground in Duncannon we had planned to stay at we found that they had been flooded out during recent rainstorms. The area had received around 5 inches of rain and the ground was still saturated. So we dug out our map book and found a nice state park to camp at. It was only about 8 or 9 miles from the previous planned spot. So for the next 3 nights Little Buffalo SP was home for us.

Our campsite at Little Buffalo SP

     We decided to shuttle ourselves the next few sections of the trail dropping one of us off at a trailhead while the other drove to the opposite end of what we planned to hike and hike towards each other. We did this mostly as day hikes, although we did do one overnighter this way as well.

Campsite near Rausch Gap shelter

    After a few days of shuttling each other we ended up at the 501 shelter and camped there for 3 nights. Thimble and Shark are the caretakers at the 501. We met Thimble during our 2011 hike down in southern VA. Thimble was kind enough to allow us to park our car off the road in a turn around spot at the end of their driveway. We left our car there for a week and hired a shuttle (Joyce Carlin) to drive us up to Wind Gap where we would hike the 85 or so miles back to 501 and our car.

 We had to scramble down these rocks and boulders to make the 1000' descent out of the Superfund area to the cross the river below.

 Typical rocky trail in the northern half of PA

 No wonder our feet get tired trying to follow the "white blazes" in PA

We saw the message after we had made the scary drop down from the Super fund area...too late!

    After we found a stealth site the first day out we quickly set up our tent while hearing the rumble of thunder coming closer. We were able to eat our supper, brush our teeth and get the food bag hung before the rain drove us into the tent. After a good nights rest we headed up the trail eventually coming thru the Super fund cleanup area near Palmerton. This is a contaminated area from mining done in the late 1800's. The last several miles of the day took us through   a detour around the cleanup with lots of views out to the hazy landscape below. At one point as we came down a short, steep drop a momma turkey surprise attacked us trying to draw us away from her babies. The last part of the day was the steep 1000' boulder descent down to the river below. We needed to resupply so we hiked a bit less than a mile down the blue blaze trail towards Palmerton and stealth camped. We were so tired that the noise of the highway 60' below us failed to bother our sleep that night. The next morning we headed to Subway for a breakfast sandwich and bought a BMT for lunch on the trail. We headed to a grocery store and restocked our food for the next few days. They gave us a free orange and apple because we were hikers. Thank you Country Harvest! A young lady offered us a ride back to the trail saving us the 2 mile hike. Thank you.

 And the rocks just kept coming

 A great view from the Pinnacles overlook

Often these rocks would go on for a half a mile plus followed by a short break...then more and more rocks & boulders!

     The next couple of days we saw the traffic increase on the trail because it was the weekend. Thru one section there even was a trail race going on where we met at least 50 runners coming toward us...so much for peace and quiet on the trail. We did go by several nice overlooks though: the Pinnacles, Dan's pulpit, the Pulpit, etc. We met several thru-hikers as well as section hikers like ourselves over the week we hiked south. It's always a treat to see when the thru-hikers started the trail and to swap stories about their experience so far.

And the rocks just kept on coming!

 A monument to the PA Rocks!

 Crossing the tracks at Port Clinton and heading up 900' in the next mile and half of trail

 Some of the beauty along the trail

Typical trail thru PA

     We did another resupply when we crossed the road at Port Clinton. Walmart was just a mile off the trail and made a quick resupply stop with a chance to take another Subway sandwich on the trail for lunch. We eventually made it back to the 501 shelter and our car. At that point we headed to Delaware Water Gap and rested at a motel for a day, did laundry, etc. We hiked 6.5 miles the next day from Fox Gap to DWG. We have 9 miles left to do in PA which we chose not to tackle due to rain and slippery rocks etc. We headed for home rather than sit around in the rain. All in all we had a great time, but we will be glad to see less and less rocks.

The only rattler we saw on our hike...but that's OK