The Pinnacle
25 May 2024
Every year, Our Jeff tries to get to the Pinnacle and Pulpit, two rock outcrops on the Appalachian Trail near Hamburg, PA. It's a nine-mile hike. He set the date for yesterday.
I decided to start my vacation a day early to join him and Heddy.
I'm not a hiker. My left ankle's outer ligament is stapled to my bone after 12 sprains in 11 years more than 30 years ago. My ankle's proprioceptors went away with the shredded bits of ligament, so I have to wear a complicated brace every time I do something not on level ground. The immobilized ankle tends to send torque to my left knee, and then on up to my hip. After experiencing this on a hike up to Mount Tammany a while back, I hadn't been on a hilly hike at all.
Two winters ago, I bought a set of hiking poles, hoping I'd have a chance to use them properly. They're good for protecting knees on descents. They'd help with my ankle, too. I used them once on a fairly level surface; they weren't very helpful there.
They stayed folded in a closet until yesterday.
Heddy and I parked our cars at Jeff's and he drove the hour and a half up to Hamburg, PA.
Somewhere along the way, I noticed a little spider making its way across the back of Jeff's headrest. Of course, I took a picture and sent it up to iNaturalist for identification. The best I could get, zooming in on a cell phone photo in a shaky car, was enough to say that the critter was something in the crab spider family.
It was barely past 9:00 and already the little gravel lot at the base of the trail was almost full.
I unfolded my poles and, to my dismay, could not get them to lock in place. I handed one over to Jeff. He wasn't sure how he did it, but the one he was holding stayed put. There was only one lever to tighten. That wasn't working on the pole I was holding. As we walked towards the trailhead, I tried over and over, dismantling it, reattaching it, looking for secret buttons, and eventually giving up. I folded it, strapped it together, and attached it to the side of my pack. One pole would have to do.
At first the trail was gravel. The gravel gave way to larger rocks as we reached the Appalachian Trail proper. Jeff had warned us about this. He said the rocks would get larger as we got closer to the peak of our first climb.
Once in a while, I'd pull out the busted pole and try again to no avail. After stashing it away again for the last time, having noticed that the pole was now in two pieces, I took out my camera to get a few shots of the trail.
As we started climbing, the pole I was using began to come apart. I snapped it back together a couple of times, but after it happened again, I folded it up and stashed it with the other one. As luck would have it, I hadn't gone more than a few steps when, lying across the trail, was the perfect piece of branch. Thick on one end and slightly curved on the other, the bark mostly peeled away, the shape and height seemed perfect for a walking stick. So, there I was, a hundred dollars of useless gear clanging away on my backpack, and dumb old stick in my hand.
Having one hand free helped as we got closer to the Pulpit. The rocks got bigger. We started hopping from one to the next, and then climbing up them. At least I got to see some little orchard orbweavers up close.
An outcrop called the Pinnacle was our reward. Jeff got there first and gestured towards the view.
Heddy posed for some glamor shots. I decided to ham it up too, next to Heddy's poles. Heddy took the pictures. Only the one not showing my face is worth posting. I told her to delete the others.
I was already feeling tired. We'd only covered 2.5 miles. Most of the climbing was finished, though. Now we just had the rocky trail to deal with.
More than a few times I felt the brace catch my ankle. Jeff said he'd nearly turned his too. I saw Heddy's feet wobble on a few occasions.
Heddy found a snakeskin on a rock. Jeff suspected it was shed by a rattlesnake.
We reached the Pinnacle, a higher outcrop, after scrambling over a few more boulders. Jeff aimed for a rock in the shade. We had our lunch and took pictures.
"Would you do this again?" Jeff asked. Heddy said yes. I said no. I was aching from the hips down, sticky with sweat, and pissed off at my hiking poles.
Not long after we started down the mountain, I found another stick. It wasn't as good as the first for gripping, but it was sturdy. Now, finally, I had something to help me protect my knees. It was already feeling too late for that, though. I was picking my way very slowly through the rocks. A lot of hikers had blown past us already. Now I felt as if I were slowing things down. I was miserable. Despite having a job that keeps me on my feet most of the day, and despite all the strength training I do, my legs were not prepared for this. I wasn't tired, at least. Just aching.
Finding the vernal pool was an excuse to stop for a minute. The terrain being what it was, I hadn't been able to enjoy the scenery at all. I'd been looking down the entire time. Now that we were on our way down and had plenty of time before our (extremely early) dinner reservation, it was okay to take a little more scenery in.
"Tadpoles!" I said, and pointed them out. (This is a zoomed-in section of the photo above.)
I was in so much pain at this point that I slowed way down. Heddy was ahead, bopping along, the pain-free athlete that she is. Jeff was starting to feel the miles. When I saw a rock that looked like it needed to be sat on, I did, if only for a minute. Then I took pictures of all of our poles.
When we reached the helipad at the intersection of the Appalachian and Furnace Creek trails, we sat on the ground for a real break.
The Furnace Trail was, supposedly, a road, but it would have taken a tank to navigate some parts. It was rocky, still, but at least the rocks were generally smaller and the larger ones easier to avoid.
Now that we had plenty of time, Jeff was starting to notice the little things, like the tulip poplar petals that were scattered across the trail.
We were following the creek, which we could hear, and, once in a while, see.
The trail led to a reservoir. I collapsed onto a rock.
"How much farther?" I asked. Jeff figured we'd be back at the car before 4:00.
"What time is it now?"
"3:10."
I blew a rasperry and heaved myself up again.
It was Jeff who found the asters growing around a dead tree branch.
We cleaned ourselves off, changed into dry clothes, and got back into the car, soaking up the air conditioning. With extra time before the 4:30 reservation (I told you it was ridiculously early), Jeff gave us a tour of Lenhartsville, where his mother, aunts, and uncles grew up. He showed us a couple of houses they'd lived in, one of which still had a smokehouse out back.
I wasn't hungry, which was weird because I'm always hungry. But I wasn't. The restaurant, Deitsch Eck, was part of Jeff's pilgrimage. He'd even ordered a shoo-fly pie in advance to bring to his sister. German cooking being what it is, and me being vegetarian, I ordered a small salad while Heddy and Jeff got proper German meals. I was more interested in all the hex signs scattered around. Having grown up close enough to Pennsylvania Dutch country to have been on a handful of trips, I'd wound up with a little hex sign of my own as a kid. I'd forgotten all about it until now. Something about one of them on the wall looked familiar. The artist credited on the menu cover was the same name as the one on my little hex sign: Zook.
We each got desserts to go. We made it back to Jeff's house around 7:15. Having been scrunched up in the back seat for an hour and a half, I found myself with legs so stiff it hurt to walk to my car, which I had to do twice: once for all my gear, and again for the sticks.
I knew that if I moved around some at home, on level ground, in my socks, I'd loosen up, so I spent time cleaning things off and putting my gear away. I got a shower, popped a couple of naproxen, ate some yogurt, and shared the slice of apple cobbler pie with Jack.
I got Janice ready for Tom's Saturday ride. This included fitting her with a new Janice, a big-headed keychain that is such a far cry from the Muppet Janice is that I'm barely hanging onto the tradition at this point. Nevertheless:
Janice's new Janice accompanied me on Tom's ride this morning. He put all the hills first, and I felt them on tired legs. I was relieved that all I felt was a little bit of soreness. My knees didn't hurt and my hips were fine. I did much better after the rest stop, which was at a Wawa. Not wanting to hold up the group by standing in line for a cold brew, I got an iced coffee out of the machine. Their "regular" iced coffee comes out with cream and sugar. It tasted more like the latter and barely at all like the former. Whatever was in it, though, gave me what I needed for the rest of the ride.
Later in the afternoon, I took the busted poles, the worst one now fully coming apart, back to REI. After some discussion, because it had been more than a year since I purchased them, but they'd blown up after only two outings, I was given a full refund. I bought another pair, the same kind that Jeff and Heddy have. They telescope, but they don't fold.
At home, I set them up and realized that my two prized sticks were actually too short for me. Perhaps that contributed to some of the pain I felt by the end. I'm relieved that I didn't actually get hurt, only severely sore for a night. I don't like this sort of intense hiking nearly as much as I like bike riding, that's for sure.
Now, Jeff is contemplating a trip back to the Pinnacle and Pulpit in the fall. I said I'd go, but only if we can avoid the worst of the rocks.
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