The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Having slept on the ground, without my air mattress, I woke expecting to be stiff sore, but I was actually feeling relatively good. Ed was kind enough to fire up the stove and make some Starbucks, although the stove was not initially cooperative.

We broke camp and headed South, the trail was in it’s usual condition, rough and rocky. We hiked along for many miles until the scenery started to look much different. We were no longer in a thick forest, but more like an open grass land. There were trees, but they were very young, and a variety field plants and grasses. It was nice, but something seemed off about it.

When I started looking closer I could see the remains of some of the old forest that once stood here, a dead tree here, a stump there. It was obvious that something bad had happened.

We would learn later that this was the land above where a two zinc smelters were in operation from 1898 to 1980. The air pollution had killed off all vegetation, and left behind toxic levels of zinc, cadmium and lead. The area was often described as looking like a “moonscape”.

In 1983, the area was declared a Superfund Site by the EPA. In 2002 a small non-profit group purchased the land with the goal of turning it green again. Through years of hard work, the have managed to turn the barren wasteland into a thriving grassland habitat, complete with ripe raspberry that we could not help but sample.

We hiked on getting close to our destination of the Lehigh Gap. The view from the top of the mountain was stunning, but we still needed to get down to the bottom, and cross the river.

The trail was some of the most precarious that we have crossed to date. We made it down safely, but I would not want to do it again.

After making it to the bottom we walked to the town of Slatington, had a late-lunch while waiting for Lynn to pick us up.

After Lynn got us, we traveled back to Wind Gap to the hotel so I could get my air mattress. After coordinating schedules and weather reports, we are looking at doing some slack packing on Saturday.

For the rest of tonight, hot shower and warm bed.