Pictures -- West Virginia, Maryland, & Pennslyvania
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The coming together of the Potomac (left) and Shenandoah Rivers (right) to the east of historic Harpers Ferry.
The Appalachian Trail Conference, which oversees the numerous Appalachian Trail clubs that maintain the trail, is located in Harpers. This is their headquarters, where they have a cool topo of the whole trail, much trail memorabilia, a scale, among other things. Many say that Harpers is the psychological half-way point; the actual half-way point is still another 80 miles north in Pennsylvania.
After crossing the PA border, I began to hear what sounded like tribal chanting. My hope was that I was passing through an Indian reservation; my concern was that I would soon come upon a group of devil worshippers dancing around a pile of dead animals. As it turned out, the chanting was Terry Shelter, a professional auctioneer who was running a real estate auction. "Okay, we have a framed newspaper clipping of Terry Duckworth from 1954 after scoring the winning touchdown. Do we have two dollars, dolla'-dolla'-dolla'.-Seeing-none-how-'bout-one-dolla-dolla-dolla-Come-on-folks-fifty-cents-fifty-fifty-fifty... I obviously did not buy anything, but I did enjoy watching others fill their cars with someone else's junk.
The half-way point, sort of. This sign was erected in 1984; but since then, the trail has gotten 31 miles longer, and there is little possibility that this still marks the spot. In fact, the length of the trail changes every year -- switchbacks are added, pivotal land is acquired, boardwalks are built, and roadwalks are eliminated.
It is a ritual among thru-hikers that, upon reaching the halfway point, one eats an entire half-gallon of ice cream. Those who are successful -- only about half of those who try -- become members of the Half-gallon Club, and recieve a wooden spoon in recognition of their accomplishment. I went with the Hershey's Cookies 'n Creme and have not touched that flavor since. It was not too bad until I began to read the half-gallon log, which details people vommiting and getting the runs -- severely. Then I began to have double thoughts.
In Pennsylvania, the Appalachian chain that the trail had been following runs out; so the trail heads west to the next chain over. In making that transition, the trail crosses "The Inferno" -- a 20-mile stretch of farmland near Boiling Springs, PA, that is scorching hot during the day time with no protection from the sun. I was smart about it: I hiked three-quarters of it in the dark, using only the moon as a guide. The fireflies were fabulous; pictures of them, however, came out completely black.
The fields provided an appreciated change in terrain and vistas.
This is Lehigh Gap, through which the Lehigh River flows. Blue Mountain is on the left; the town of Palmerton, PA, is down the river and to the right around the mountain.
This is one of the zinc smelters in Palmerton, as seen from the Blue Mountain ridgeline. Prior to 1982, when the government shut down the smelters, Palmerton's economy was dependent on these smelters.
This picture and the one below capture the environmental degradation caused by the zinc smelters, which released so many pollutants into the air that ground soil within a 10-mile radius of the town is too toxic to support life. As I mentioned before, the EPA shut down the smelters in 1982; so after twenty-years, the few patches of green in the pictures is all that exists -- and locals say this is an improvement!
The ridgeline is very arid; the soil has been either washed or blown away, leaving just small pebbles and large rocks.
Earl Shaffer, the first person to thru-hike the AT in 1948, built this shelter. It fits perhaps four people; it would provide protection from the rain but not from the wind or the cold. I had heard from several PA folks that he "dis-owned" it when a local trail club gave it a floor.
Hilary and I outside of Chocolate World in Hershey, PA, where we saw how chocolate is made and where we did some Christmas shopping. Unfortunately, all of the gifts melted in Hilary's car on her ride home -- you see, she had no A/C and it was about 95 degrees those days; so Mom, Kerri, Christine, Meg, Laura, and Maya, sorry guys.
At The Pinnacle, supposedly the best view in all of Pennsylvania. I saw haze.
This is what they mean by "Pennsylvania rocks!" They are not referring to the great nightlife or to the beatiful beaches. They are instead talking about their rocks -- i.e. cohesive atoms of granite. The joke on the trail is that after God created the Appalachian mountains, he thought they were too rocky; so he swept them all up and dumped them in Pennsylvania, instead. Truthfully, the rocks are not bad until the last 75 miles of the state -- then the trail is basically what you see above. Some of the rocks are big, some small; some are totally exposed, some partially buried; and all of them are pointy.
More rocks. The picture on the right is where I was going; on the left, where I came from. So much for those 20-minute miles.
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