(Daily Mi: 16.7) Last night at about 12:30 a group of about twenty to thirty boyscouts (?) came tromping past the shelter which is right on the AT. There seemed to be a leader for about every 4 boys, and they passed in clumps of 5. Each leader had a lamp he insisted on shining inside the shelter as he passed. They also had FHS band radios and kept passing information back and forth while alternately barking orders at the scouts. I finally lost it when the last group paused by the shelter and looked as if they were going to take up residence. At least the leader seemed a little embarrassed when he realized there were people already inside and trying to sleep. Only sign of them today was three unmarked passenger vans in the roadhead parking lot. Most odd.

Very challenging and occasionally exhilarating hike today. The climb up onto the ridge above Palmerton (Lehigh Gap) is a hand-over-hand affair over bare rocks. This is (and was) actually quite fun if you get to the hill before the sun starts heating the rocks. Piper, Choo Choo, the Potato Man and I all set out at different points in the early morning but managed to converge about halfway up the face (a large family had started up ahead of us and provided an excellent excuse to be lazy).

It was a wasteland up top. A forest fire burned over the southern half of the ridge some 30 years ago. With the exception of a few dwarfed shrubs and trees, the water table is too poisoned with heavy metals to support new growth. Exposed rock and the weathered remains of the burned over trees stretch on for six miles. A poisoned spring some two miles in collects into a crystal clear pool formed by a basin in the rocks -- untouched and untouchable.

It was a hot dry day. No canopy for six miles. My shirt was dry but white with salt as my vital fluids wicked unseen from my person. After lunch Potato Man and I encountered a man painting out the next blaze on the route. He informed us that there was a relocation in progress. He told us that we could still follow the route he was blacking out but suggested we go back about 100 yards where workers were opening up the new trail. We stumbled back down the hill and found the maintainers stretching a ribbon across the fresh trailbed. We would be the first hikers to walk this section. The Potato Man went first. Photos were taken. The trail workers applauded. About a hundred yards down the new trailbed, we found two folks about to apply a fresh blaze. They very kindly let us take over. I held the stencil. Potato Man applied the paint.

Although I had carried near to gallon of water up the ridge this morning, I drained my last bottle with about 8 miles to go to the shelter. With 6 miles to go I took a sidetrail to a seasonal spring down a 1/2 mile sidetrail. A register at the trailhead indicated the spring had been down to a trickle as of two days ago (month old entries indicated a gusher). My entry indicated that the spring was dry as a bone (probably for the season), and I hiked the 6 miles onto the shelter dead dry and dead thirsty in just over 1 1/2 hours. The shelter was .2 off the trail, and it was probably another quarter mile down to the water. I dropped my pack at the shelter and ran down the hill. It was not a piped spring, but it was a gusher. I filled a bottle from a ledge and downed a quart without breathing.