Yep... Did some more hiking... Went out for 3 nights and 4 days chasing Fall colours SOBO from Palmerton to Furnace Creek late last week thru Sunday, with quite a bit of Blue, and Red blazing... First off... It was overcast, then it got windy, REALLY windy then it was raining, then it was snowing... Then it got interesting... Since I was in no hurry, and picture op's were few and far between, I pretty much went down any and every blazed trail I saw... Some were to un-named springs I was not familiar with, but am now, some were to campsites/lookouts, and still others to... I have no idea, as they did not seem to go anywhere, but were well worn/blazed... One thing is for sure, water is scarce in that area... At least 3 springs I have used often, were bone dry... Dan's Spring, Jane's Spring and the Blue blazed spring @ the Allentown shelter... At Allentown Shelter, I jumped on the Yellow blaze after the blue, and after what seemed like forever heading down hill, found a spring that had enough water that you could fill a couple 1L bottles in just a few minutes... Just my luck tho, I had grabbed 2L of H20 aboot 4 Miles North, after being told by some hikers the shelter was "dry"... Happened on a few hunting camps on some side trails I followed too... Heard lots of gun shots every day, except Sunday...
To follow up on a few things from my last hike... I followed the Red blazed trail after the "Alter" for prolly an hour, again heading down the mountain, and after a while, the blazes disappeared and it seemed to turn into more of a game trail, never really saw where it was destined... It was getting dark fast, and there was no way I was going to make it back to the AT... So, I went into stealth camp search mode and found an awesome site for the night, I will post some pics of it later... Its was just big enough for my tent, could not even guy out my fly... Of course it rained all night, but no worries, I stayed dry... Another was "How were sooooo many people" making it up to the Pinnacle??? Well, I not only got my answer, I got it from this REALLY cool old guy I met near the Reservoir, that was throwing rocks with some kinda "Biblical" rope sling with a leather pocket on it... He could chuck a fist sized rock a hundred yards into the reservoir, it was impressive... My few attempts at it could only be described as "extremely dangerous"... To myself... Anyhoo, he took me to 2 different trails up to the Pinnacle I did not know aboot, the first of which was an old logging road that he said used to be closed... We made it up and down in under 2 hours, with only 10 minutes of rocky trail... The second was on the opposite side of the Rez, and again was an old "road"... If you looked hard enough, I could kinda see it... It was not a "bush whack", but it was also no real trail either... It was a lot of fun going up, but it was just that, pretty much just straight up... Near the top, it comes out on another Blue blazed trail that comes from the parking lot that I already knew of... Learned a lot on this trip, especially aboot how well I have fine tuned my cold weather/windy kit, cold/rainy/windy kit and sub 20 degree sleep system( thank you Scott for making such an awesome down bag, and skoolin' me on how to work those Karo baffles to my advantage...) I never found myself uncomfortable at any time... I do need to add Terry cloth snot swipe on my gloves somehow, ala my Pearl Izumi Road gloves from cycling... Maybe JJ has an idea for me
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To follow up on a few things from my last hike... I followed the Red blazed trail after the "Alter" for prolly an hour, again heading down the mountain, and after a while, the blazes disappeared and it seemed to turn into more of a game trail, never really saw where it was destined... It was getting dark fast, and there was no way I was going to make it back to the AT... So, I went into stealth camp search mode and found an awesome site for the night, I will post some pics of it later... Its was just big enough for my tent, could not even guy out my fly... Of course it rained all night, but no worries, I stayed dry... Another was "How were sooooo many people" making it up to the Pinnacle??? Well, I not only got my answer, I got it from this REALLY cool old guy I met near the Reservoir, that was throwing rocks with some kinda "Biblical" rope sling with a leather pocket on it... He could chuck a fist sized rock a hundred yards into the reservoir, it was impressive... My few attempts at it could only be described as "extremely dangerous"... To myself... Anyhoo, he took me to 2 different trails up to the Pinnacle I did not know aboot, the first of which was an old logging road that he said used to be closed... We made it up and down in under 2 hours, with only 10 minutes of rocky trail... The second was on the opposite side of the Rez, and again was an old "road"... If you looked hard enough, I could kinda see it... It was not a "bush whack", but it was also no real trail either... It was a lot of fun going up, but it was just that, pretty much just straight up... Near the top, it comes out on another Blue blazed trail that comes from the parking lot that I already knew of... Learned a lot on this trip, especially aboot how well I have fine tuned my cold weather/windy kit, cold/rainy/windy kit and sub 20 degree sleep system( thank you Scott for making such an awesome down bag, and skoolin' me on how to work those Karo baffles to my advantage...) I never found myself uncomfortable at any time... I do need to add Terry cloth snot swipe on my gloves somehow, ala my Pearl Izumi Road gloves from cycling... Maybe JJ has an idea for me
... 1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...
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