Rocky Pennsylvania 5/29/09

Sam, Dustin and Sally are camped tonight at the 1200 ft level overlooking Rt. 309 near New Tripoli, Pa. In his words, "The AT is amazing! Pennsylvania is rocky like Balboa." He says that the vistas are unbelievable. In this area the AT is following a ridge heading northeast towards the Delaware Water Gap about 35 miles away. The Water Gap is where the trail leaves Pennsylvania and enters New Jersey. They expect to make the Gap by this Thursday evening.The weather has been nice the last few days with highs in the 70's and low's at night around 55. They are getting spotty afternoon showers that they can see coming for miles away. Kind of nice to be able to anticipate weather on the trail.Sally is showing her devotion to Sam. She has chewed through her leash some 10-15 times in last couple of days while waiting on Sam to pick up supplies in town. Each time she was found at the entrance to the store or shop where Sam was. Now Dustin sits with Sally while Sam makes a supply run. She's wearing her rear boots, no need for the front ones just yet. She's spooked and chased countless chipmunks, ground squirrels, and other rodents but when she get's them cornered, she snaps at the air and let's them go on their way. Much fun for her. She did sniff out a baby deer yesterday. After she took a good smell of the little one, she turned to Sam as if to say, "Hey look what I found!" She was content to just look and smell. She beats Sam to the top of every hill.Sam picked up a pair of Leki hiking poles for the trail yesterday. Says they are great and doesn't know how he got along without them. No new equipment issues have arisen. All seems well in East Central Pa.The trail rises from here to the 1500 ft elevation near the Delaware Water Gap and the scenery is constantly changing. Tomorrow they enter an EPA Super Fund Site where zinc was once mined. It's all been reclaimed and restored now, but serves as a reminder of some of the terrible things we do to mother earth.Sam hasn't been able to update his blog or check his email just yet. He hopes to do that by this weekend. For those of you wishing to follow Sam, Dustin and Sally on the interactive map, go to coordinates Lat: 40.70641, Lng: -75.80772 athttp://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.fivemillionsteps.com/trailmap.php.
All for now
Kmac