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Saturday, September 23rd 2000
Appalachian Trail
Bake Oven Knob to Palmerton
Joe and I wanted to redo the section of the AT that caused us so
much misery the year before, so we drove up to Bake Oven Knob, and arranged for
our Dad to pick us up in Slatington. The hike is much nicer
without a 65lb pack on your shoulders :-) I brought 164 ounces of
Gatorade, which I've found to work extremely well. Hydration has consistently
been my number one problem on hikes, and the year before on the AT might not
have been so bad if we had enough water. The hike varies quite a bit, and it's a
very nice section of trail. It has a lot of the stuff you see on Pennsylvania
trails, all within a 9 mile hike. Directly after Bake Oven Knob
(that name is very popular for hills in PA, and someday I'll find out what it
means!) there is a few hundred yard long pile of rocks about the size of your
dining room table and chairs, and I've always liked scrambling around stuff like
that. The first photo is of Joe on top of them. After the rocky
section, the trail turns to soft grass, and it is a pleasure to walk on. Passing
the trail shelter where I searched in vain for a spring the year before, the
trail descends partly to the north side of the Blue Ridge, and it turns into a
nice walk in the woods. This goes on for a few miles, and although you pass some
power lines to break up the monotony, it starts to get boring.
Below, you'll see the panorama overlooking the Lehigh Valley Tunnel, Lehighton
and the Lehigh River. The views here were incredible, and the fall colors and
lightning-struck trees were truly inspiring. Sadly, photos can almost never
relate the images you see when hiking, since there is no depth perception. I've
toyed around with taking 3-D pictures, but I have no way of rendering them so
that people who are "Magic Eye impaired" can view them. This vista is worth the
hike, all by itself. There is a road fairly close by that leads to an antenna
farm. so if you don't want to do the all day thing, you could just drive up. I'd
like to do that at some point to see the Devil's Pulpit. Maybe next year . . .
We wanted to get to the Devil's Pulpit, overlooking the barren, zinc-killed
hills of Palmerton, but we had to make time, so we took a shortcut past another
trail shelter. Two hobos were having a football tailgate of sorts, and we
chatted about the Penn State game for a few minutes before making the incredibly
long descent to the valley below.
For some reason, the trail takes an angled descent to Slatington
that goes on forever. I would much rather have gone straight down the hill . . .
it's not that steep. The problem, as many hikers know, is that if your boots
don't fit PERFECTLY, then you'll lose your toenails on something like that. I
did.
Arriving at the pickup spot precisely at the time arrived at, we
took off with some sore feet, and a little redemption, have failed so miserably
the last time we tried this section of the AT.

Views from Bake Oven Knob


Big, 360 degree panorama


180 degree panorama

Views of Bake Oven Knob from the valley . . . looks much better from the top!

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