7-20-2009 Mon

Start point: Bake Oven Knob Shelter
End point: Smith Gap Rd, the Stempa's House
miles hiked: 20.1

Me and Time Bomb hiked out pretty early.

When we got to PA 145 we decided we wanted to find a ride to Walnutport so we could have lunch at a buffet. The food at the chinese place we had planned on looked kinda sad, and the pizza place next door had a buffet with no pizza on it (meatloaf and hamburger helper with pasta?), so we hit up McDonalds. A couple gave us a ride back to the trail, and we made the climb out of Lehigh Gap during the hottest part of the day.

It was actually a pretty fun climb, and then we hiked through the Superfund site. This area of Blue Mtn was affected by nearly a century of zinc smelting in Palmerton, PA, and in 1982 the EPA put the affected area on the Superfund clean up list. "Revegation efforts are underway, and the mountain is slowly coming back to life."

Time Bomb's friend Michael was meeting him at the next road crossing and was getting on the trail to hike with him for a week, so we waited for him there, then they went into town to get Michael stocked up on food. After my climb out of Little Gap I had to bust a move to some Galactic

I told them I was hiking to the Stempa's, and they were gonna try and make it there as well. John "Mechanical Man" and Linda "Crayon Lady" Stempa live a mile off the trail and let hikers come to their house to get water and camp in their yard. They were home when I got there and were nice enough to let me take a shower in their house and gave me a soda. George and her dog Gracie were their, and later Crow, Time Bomb and his friend Michael showed up. They let those of us who wanted to stay in the garage sleep there,

and the others set up in the yard. Their kid and his friend were super hyper little guys and John was pretty high-energy himself. John and Linda have been helping hikers since at least the early 90's and were just all around great people. So great to find this kind of hospitality.