Appalachian Trail ~ Completing Another Section, Smith Gap to Wind Gap

so there he is there's the man himself so he's dropping me off for another appalachian trail hike so the clowns are coming yeah the clowns the sacrifice today oh hopefully not more wondering woodsman all right let's get away from him we'll save farewell as he abandons me out here and here we go here are the white blazes so as you can tell by the title of the video i'm doing another one of my appalachian trail hikes i haven't done one of these for a while yeah so greetings from pennsylvania once again i know i usually say at the beginning of the video but i want to get a catch up video of john there yeah as many some of you know i don't like clowns so john always jokes about that i mean you know a horde of clowns out here in the woods waiting for me which would be a nightmare for me but anyway yeah we are so i'm doing that on my appalachian trail hike videos i haven't done one of these since man i don't know when earlier this spring and many of you know i am trying to hike all the appalachian trail here in pennsylvania at least you know section by section and this is my last section i'm doing eight miles from smith gap to wind gap in a little while i'll show you on the map where i'm at and this will be my last section east of the susquehanna river to do so this is a big one for me all right like i said a little bit later i'll pull the maps out and show you where i'm at then after today all i have is like 40 or so miles in michaud state forest south central pa to do yeah so it's actually a pretty nice day today i've had some hot days recently but today won't be as hot i think today is july 27th it's wednesday morning like i said we got eight miles all right so i found a decent spot to pull out the maps i know some of you like to see the maps but here's our map of pennsylvania and we they were all the way up here by what's called wind gap that's where i'm at i'm hiking actually no we're down a little bit farther a place called smith gap and we're hiking north towards wind gap eight miles let's get the other map out show you exactly where we are all right so here is the actual appalachian trail map made by the keystone trail association of course we left naomi back here at wind gap and john just dropped me off way back here at smith gap and we're making it got eight miles to go looks like there's a the leroy smith shelter he might stop there got some views maybe lots of those red line uh what do we call those marks are this might have a few views along the way and just a couple days ago on friday morning we were down in delaware on the beach brewing up some coffee enjoying a cup of coffee watching the sunrise cape and lupine on their rocks there that was amazing watching the waves come in and crash up on the rocks seeing the sun come up and now we're back in the mountains of pennsylvania it's good to have some variety though yeah so back there's where we came from i just got done talking at the end i saw little orange markers here and saw this like what does this say and it says beware of hornets just ahead 7 23. that was this past saturday oh you know what i see it the hornet nest cause they have it all marked here okay yeah they're the big old hornet's nest right there you can see that yeah beware of hornets yeah we're on the other side now but let's zoom in they're definitely coming in out of that nest yeah you can see them in there uh what are those called bald-faced hornets i believe i will let them be yeah so thanks to whoever put that little warning sign up if you just walk past the nest you're gonna be okay but it's good to know it's there so you don't like bump into it you know but hornets aren't usually terribly aggressive unless you uh endanger the nest then they're not then they'll have a problem with you but if you just walk safely by at a distance they'll just ignore you but it's still good to know the nest is there so you're not just like blindly walking down and maybe reach out to you know to touch a branch or something there's a hornet's nest there then then you'll have a problem yeah i almost forgot to mention i do have channel sticker number 26 with it's back in my pack i think i'm going to put that near the uh the leroy smith shelter halfway through this hike i think so i put that one so i'll get it out when we get there channel sticker number 26 of course we just placed number 25 down at cape henlopen i also want to thank you guys too you know my friend john you like many of you know start his own channel hometown historian he's got a lot of support from you guys starting out you know he's still learning the ropes and stuff but most of you have been supportive of him wasn't expecting to get as many subscribers as he did already because he's got some hate already but i warned him i warned him about that you know i have my own haters here on this channel i said i warned them you know they're gonna they're gonna come to your channel too and so i think that's first dislike already but he's cool with it so that's the way it is but same way thanks you guys for supporting john kind of just been going through a tough time in his life here and it's you know it feels it helps him to just to feel good about what he's doing so thanks matt and a big thank you to those who were on the trail before me this morning they have busted through all the spider webs so i don't have to so whoever you are thank you yeah there's times like this when you see the trail go on and on before you reminds me of that poem one of the poems in a give us the hobbit or lord of the rings uh i don't remember parts but you know the road goes ever on and i must follow if i can and so on and so on but it kind of reminds me of this the trail goes ever on i must follow if i can there's a lot more to it but i don't have the whole thing memorized beautiful poetry by tolkien though in those books so we got some more of these orange trail markers last time it was because of hornets i don't see a sign this time though okay i look around where's what should i be looking for actually you know what that looks like a nest right there almost [Music] oh yeah it is it's another nest but not uh those bald-faced warrants this time let's zoom in look more like yellow jackets or something like that see who's going in and out of there anybody home there you go yeah those are nasty looking too all right we'll give them some space yeah there's our sign hornets because this time it's on the north side of the trail all right the day of the hornets title to a horror movie day of the hornet not for me hopefully though all right so it's time to play find the chipmunk not sure if i can find one camera here we'll see i can see him with my eyes is that him right there there we go there he's hiding it's one thing to see him with your eyes but then to try and find him on the little camera screen all right right so let's head down through this grassy area glanced over almost walk right past it looks like a dead leaf let but then you see those bright spots that has an awesome looking moth there wow see it cool camouflage looks like a dead leaf but then its wings are open a little bit you see those spots awesome yeah so just stopping for a little hydration break hope there goes the bag but yeah so here's channel sticker number 26 leroy smith shelter so we got about maybe about a mile and a half yet so we get to the shelter all right so i don't know where we have a crossroads here of course the atk goes on straight looks like an old road didn't see us on the maps right i'm thinking we're not too far from the shelter because on these hikes i keep thinking that to myself but well looks like i was right this time it's about to tell myself well maybe we haven't there a mile to go yet but i see a sign so shelter ls shelter says the leroy smith shelter yeah leroy smith shelter wind gap 4.6 miles all right let's go uh let's go down to the shelter [Applause] all right so we've made our way down quite a bit here here's another little sign i guess i mean to shelter but uh there are trails all over the place here [Applause] i'm thinking that goes down to the spring let's see what this says up here oh yeah i see a shelter up there seasonal spring all right so we'll see if you have the place to ourself it is through hiker season i don't see anybody all right cool leroy smith shelter and we'll take a break here find a place to put the channel sticker yes if you do decide to come to the leroy smith shelter looking for this channel sticker so it's about 4.6 miles to wind gap so means the whole thing is about eight miles so it's about you know 3.4 miles from smith gap that's probably the shorter way to come it's also a flatter way to come if you come up from wind gap you have to go uphill climb up the mountain so but yeah it's entirely up to you if you decide to come looking for it i haven't placed it anywhere yet but just thought i'd throw it out there not a bad hike actually from smith gap not you know pennsylvania gets the term you'll rock sylvania it was the rocks are lit mild to slightly moderate in some places but in some places it was it was just mud or muddy but no rocks at all so it's not too bad the hike actually all right i guess i'm just gonna chill off here for a little bit and then i'll find a place to stash a sticker all right all right so time to place the channel sticker of course here is the shelter i'm not gonna place it anywhere right inside the shelter didn't really find a place but right right there's the steps and right there's a rock right there at the corner of the steps of course there's a sticker and here's here's a rock right here i'm gonna place this sticker under this rock here i might actually throw another rock up here keep it hidden a little bit yep so in there she lies underneath this rock right here so it's here if you want to be the one to come get it be at least a you know 3.4 mile hike to get it and as always if you're the one that finds it if you could send me a picture will you find it finding it that way i can share it in a future video and as of today i don't have any other uh pictures to share of other people finding some i think in the last last channel sticker i placed down came cape and lope in number 25 i shared two uh channel stickers that were found all right hope you hope you fine if you want to come looking for it hope you find it and back to the trail wind gap 4.6 yeah there's all kinds of tent sites around here stuff yeah this starts out as a blue second part is the blue blaze trailing down the shelter but i'll talk about that in a moment all right let's go [Applause] yeah so it is a bit of a walk off the main trail here to get to the shelter i think it starts out as a blue blaze trail you go across a power line cut and then the blue blaze trail kind of cuts off the right i'm not sure if that leads to shelter or not i continue to on a little bit went downhill a bit and i saw their signs for the shelter so i don't know there were a lot of trails zigzagging around down there because there's a number of it's not just a shelter there's always 10 sites and everything too but if you look for the shelter signs i showed in the video you should be able to find it all right 4.6 miles and this section we should have some views i think coming up right up here we're gonna be walking along the power line might have a view you know power line views are okay but i think there's another other couple of views this this actually were on didn't have any all right but it's getting hotter too all right yeah so here we are coming out onto the power line got some other folks out here too and there's our view a bit of a hazy one we'll get a little closer so that wasn't too bad there are some power lines in a way it's a bit hazy out there and that might be because of the fires out west all the smoke is coming out this way but there is another view coming up here i think is for a pipeline that goes over the mountain so there won't be any uh power lines in the way is a underground pipeline i think i remember from looking at the map that's not too far up this way and the trail just got a lot rockier too going this way maybe another reason if you come if you come looking at channel sticker maybe another reason to come from the other direction from smith gap but to each his own there's folks back at that overlook the power line those are the ones that are busting through the spider webs before me but now that i'm ahead of them i'm the one that's running through the spider webs because it's not huge ones just the ones like the single strands that go along the trail run right into them stuff so now i get to clear the trail for them i guess if they keep coming this way not sure what they're doing so i guess i'll return the favor so that view from the pipeline is a little bit further than i thought i just rechecked the map i guess i stuck in my mind that it was just a little bit for just a little bit of ways after the power line but it's not but it's almost one o'clock about 12 52 or something like that so we should be there i figured we'd be there roughly at one o'clock by looking at the map again so we should soon be there see what those views look like all right and some good news the trail has gotten a lot less rocky but some bad news the bugs have got a lot worse i mean it is july so they're gonna be here and then here and there you have these just these random little mushrooms growing amongst the rocks all right i see an area of sunshine abundant sunshine through the tree so i think this is where the power line goes up not the power line the pipeline so let's see what kind of views we get here yeah that's definitely up there let's just walk up here together i'll turn you off just a little bit oh onto the sunshine plane oh yeah there's a few out there a lot tall grass this almost reminds me we were down delaware last week at like a bombay hook or prime hook national wildlife refuge walking through the boardwalk with the marsh and the tall marsh crash on either side marsh grass i should say except they're on top of a mountain there's looking to the south a little bit all right let's get back in the shade and there are some more views up here what the map says oh it feels better yes we're on the final stretch now about another hour there two miles to go like i said there should be some more views according to the map there's another spot up here we might get views on either side that was kind of neat back there but the grass is pretty tall well hoping there's a pretty epic view up here so you get some cool pictures maybe some cool shots of me you know standing and looking out over we'll see oh you know you love these hikes but at the same time you kind of like when they're done too that makes any sense it is i mean it's warming up it's mid july so well it's actually the end of july but all right and spider webs and check out these just off trail these are these are those indian pipe flowers they have no chlorophyll so they're this white beautiful white color it's more up there yeah i found a through hiker here on the appalachian trail so how long have you been hiking the trail buddy probably decades if not years all right cool slug he's on the appalachian trail though making his way bit by bit i guess all right so i see a little side trail which i think is going to lead to a view let's check it out i mean people are going down here so let's check it out yep we have a view small one we got some blackberries here too any right make sure the water i'm walking some ripe ones there's a ripe one wow there's one just a little just a little tart yes i just had a through hiker pass me up there so now guess who gets to break down all the spider webs not me anymore i even told him this told that to him as he walked by i said no now someone else can knock the spider webs down all right so we are starting to head downhill into wind gap it'll be a long downhill i can't even start to hear some traffic from route 33 down there so starting to wind down we still got a little ways to go yet you can see it's starting to snake its way down all right so yeah you kind of wonder i kind of wonder who designed this trail sometimes we were going down on the other side mountain but then it went back up and goes over the mountain only to go down the other side now it's like why didn't we just stay up top and go down this side but it kind of like well we use all around sometimes i'm not sure but anyway it's a good workout i'll stop complaining and then here and there you have these just these random little mushrooms growing amongst the rocks yeah i almost missed the sign here it says hans look out i think that's what goes off to the right here let's check this out might be the best one of the day here well there's a rock to let's get up here on the rock well there's looking out i wouldn't say it's the best one but that's route 33 down there all right let's get back on trail and now we're on the downhill the steep downhill i'm glad i'm going down not up all right i gotta turn you off for this oh i'm out of breath did i mention that the person who designed this part of the trail was probably drunk yeah we did that steep downhill section and guess what we did we came all the way back up to the top again now we're back over the top of the ridge it doesn't make any sense really it's like we're going to take us down keep us down but it takes you steeply down then we come right back up again oh boy hey but you know what there's a view over here let's go check it out let's quick complaining let's check out this view all right all right we'll see if it was worth hiking back all the way up to the top here i just thought i heard something maybe this is the view i've been waiting for definitely beautiful all right a little bit closer yeah there we go all right so i take back my main words this view is worth it although the trail still could have stayed on top of the ridge and still brought us to this view this is the view i was looking for today one where i could set up the camera like i just did and catch myself looking out across nice rocks to sit on this is the one i wanted all right i'm gonna take a little break here have some more water and then we're heading down just a tad noisy up here you can hear the highway down there but check it out we got the turkey vultures up there i'm not dead though but yeah like i said this is the view the view i wanted i could sit on the rocks and just do this all right so farewell to our overlook in time for the real downhill yeah just check the map again and this is where we really go downhill like i said so as we continue on down to finish this hike with some different feelings you know it's gonna be good to be done with like i said we don't a whole section the appalachian trail on the east side of susquehanna here in pennsylvania and the vast majority of the trail on this section is on what's called blue mountain starting from lebanon county all the way over it's all on top of this one ridge and we'll be done with that whole section today so that's cool but anyways kind of sad too i guess whenever you finish a milestone like that [Applause] i thought i can't ever hike into these sections again but like i said we still have maybe roughly 40 miles to do another section in south central pa let me show state forest all right this section going down isn't as bad as i thought they kind of have these little switchbacks which make it a little bit easier and down here's the highway that's route 33 and we're actually going to go under route 33 it looks like that way try not to get run over yeah naomi should be up that way somewhere parking waiting for me there she is what a beautiful sight and as always thanks for coming along and i'll see you around i'm gonna get in the air conditioning

Channel: The Wandering Woodsman

Views: 2,940

Rating: 4.9483204 out of 5

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Id: -OKYzPyV6tY

Length: 31min 15sec (1875 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021