There is very little water to be found on top of a Pennsylvania mountain in early September. I found out the hard way.
Suzanne and I found a nice Hip Camp just north of the AT. We headed on on Saturday morning. We drove to the top of the mountain near the Blue Mountain Resort and parked at a trail head. I figured starting at the top would eliminate a long uphill section to start the hike. It did.
Why would I include such an obvious point to my story? Because the not so obvious point is that the water is further down the mountain.
I packed water in my pack at the camp site. When we got to the trail head, I didn’t notice that my water had slipped out of the pack. I only realized when I went for my first drink. Suzanne had a liter of water and I had filters and water purification tablets, so we soldiered on. Our plan that day was to hike 7 miles. The blazed AT in that section does not match the maps or my OutdoorActive app. We ended up hiking 8-1/2 miles, and we never passed water.
I was getting pretty thirsty toward the end. There were plenty of other hikers if we had an emergency, but we made it without showing any major signs of dehydration. The biggest medical issue came later that night. I tried to slip out of my quilt and the muscle on my inner thigh cramped up. The cramping was so bad that my leg continued to hurt the next day.
Did I mention there were rocks…lots of rocks. Parts of this trail were extremely rocky and it makes for slow hiking. Of course, rocks in Pennsylvania comes as no surprise to experienced AT hikers.
