Day 17: Palmerton, Pa.

The 17.7 mile hike into Palmerton took me through a God-made garden on top of a 1,500 foot ridge. The trees grew in groves above soft grass and ferns, and an acre of wild blueberries lined both sides of the trail. The last 4 miles or so were one of the few times in Pennsylvania where the sun meets the trail.




Getting from the trail to town involved hiking along a railroad and then thumbing for a ride at the exit from Pa. 248 into Palmerton. I was in a rush because the library was about to close. Finally, a blue pickup truck stopped virtually in the middle of the road and the back door came down to reveal three hikers - Tin Man, Gaspard [the Canadians, from New Brunswick] and Chance, a thru hiker from Virginia I met at Port Clinton] and their packs all crammed into the enclosed truck bed. I jammed myself in, and a few minutes later we were all signing in at the Palmerton Burough Hall.

It's called the Jailhouse Hostel because the hall was once the police headquarters. The town opens the entire basement of the building to let thru hikers stay for free in bunks, and there is a shower upstairs. It's quite awesome, actually.



[the house rules and some bunks, Jailhouse Hostel]

I resupplied down the street at Country Harvest supermarket with Chance. He brought back a whole rotisserie chicken and dug in at the common table. The smell lingered for hours.

A boatload of hikers arrived and then a rising high school senior came down and group interviewed us for a senior project, asking eight of us, all seated around the table like we were Arcade Fire, why we were on the trail, what we missed and how we got our names, etc. It was far out.

That was just the beginning.

At the One Ten Tavern, a waitress seated all of us at a table in a room near the kitchen and gave us menus. We already had beers from when we were waiting for the table. A portly man in a mustache at another table abrubtly asked a waitress to box his and his wife's food. A waitress soon came to our table, ans she could not have seemed sorrier as she told us we had to leave. People, and not just the box guy, had complained about our collective smell.

Most of us, including myself, were shower fresh and in fairly clean clothes. It would have been a stretch to identify me as a thru hiker had I not been in the group.

It happened again at the Palmerton Hotel. As we walked out this time, I stopped. Was I really going to go without dinner and a cold beverage just because one or two of the other hikers - and they were mostly much younger guys - didn't bother to take advantage of the shower at the hostel? Then Chance stopped, turned back, and said, "It was the guy in the dreds."

We went back in and took seats at the bar.

"We got rid of the stinky guy," Chance told the bartender, who was now glad to have us.

It was luau night, and we got lei'd, and stayed dinner to close.