Day 96
We slept in until 7:30 this morning with the intention of getting the short 4 miles to Wind Gap for a long lunch. We wanted to get out of the heat and get water in town. We got down to Wind Gap where Boots was doing trail magic while he was off for the holiday. MM, FM, Nokey, and I all got a ride down to town to find everything was closed. We got lunch and cold drinks at the gas station before heading back up to Wind Gap for a hike to the shelter. The hill up Wind Gap was steep and rocky with no switchbacks. We climbed to the top and took a break as our feet were killing us and we were super overheated. We had slow hiking from here and we saw The Honeymoon Hikers a few times, leapfrogging them during our breaks. We climbed up Wolf Rocks and then steeply down them to a roadbed. We were able to make up some time with this level waking and it was so hot! We got to PA-131 and then only had 0.6 miles to the shelter for water. Our guidebook showed it as a downhill walk, but it was all uphill and our feet were sore. I’d run out of water and just wanted to get to the shelter. We got there and got our water, which tasted metallic and warm, and sat for a while before heading to our campsite at the Kirkland Overlook. From our site. We could see in to New Jersey from here and even got to see some fireworks! We took a lot of goofy photos and had a great hiker party before calling it a night. Tomorrow - Delaware Water Gap! The photo is FM, MM, Bubblefoot, and Nokey on the overlook.