View from the Top of Another Mountain

We have gotten into a hiking spree lately.  I'm not sure if it is because we are in better physical condition than we have been for years or if it is simply the beautiful fall weather.  At any rate, we have been on a hike every Sunday afternoon for the last month.  The most recent one was yesterday when we planned to hike the Pulpit Rock/Pinnacle trail near Hamburg, PA. We had been planning for  a week.  We asked two friends that we thought would enjoy a more difficult hike to go with us. We packed snack packs; we bought good hiking shoes; we watched the weather forecast; we printed out a map of the trail and got directions to the trail head. All systems said go. 

After church yesterday, we ate our lunch at church and then picked up our two friends on the way home.  We stopped in at home for a few minutes to place the casserole for supper in the oven, change clothes, and get the dog who was excited to go with us.

 

--all eager to get started--

We followed the directions we had to the trail head and started hiking.  We were supposed to go around a yellow gate and in .52 miles be at the Appalachian Trail which we would follow for most of the 8 1/2 mile hike to Pulpit Rock and the Pinnacle and loop back to our starting point.   We didn't get to the yellow gate.  We walked a mile on a really nice bike trail and didn't find the Appalachian Trail. Finally, we turned around and walked back to our starting place.  We knew this was the wrong trail.  We looked at a map and decided to try another parking lot farther up the road.  However, that was not the right trail either.  We did meet two couples there who were familiar with the area and knew where we wanted to be.  They gave us directions to the correct trail head, but also told us that there was no way we would be able to hike all the way to the Pinnacle and back before dark.  We had lost too much time in finding the trail.  We decided to try just Pulpit Rock this time.

 

 

We drove to the right parking lot, found the yellow gate, and found the Appalachian Trail .52 miles from the parking lot.  We were on the way!  It was a beautiful day with warm sunshine--probably nearly 70 degrees.  We didn't need our sweatshirts on the way up the mountain. We stopped a few times to eat some of our snacks and rest a bit, but the farther we went the more we realized that we had to keep moving if we were going to get to the top and back before dark. 

--the view from about halfway up the mountain--

 

--we are going somewhere up that pile of rocks--

 

We reached a summit and were taking a few pictures when we realized we were not really at the top.  We had just a little piece to go to get to the real top. It was quite a workout to get over all the rocks to the top, but it was well worth the hike when we finally arrived. 

--Pulpit Rock juts out in the middle

of this picture taken from the false summit-- 

 

--group picture on the false summit--

 

 

 

We spent about twenty minutes taking in the view and then exploring the site of the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society's telescopes. About 4:40 we headed down the mountain.

--finally at the top!--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--well worth the hike!--

 

--Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society--

 

We moved faster than any of us was really comfortable with on the way down the rocky trail.  We were all envisioning ourselves spraining an ankle or otherwise falling down the mountain, but we made it safely.  It was rather dark when we finally got back to the car.

We came home and enjoyed the casserole that was in the oven, salad, and tiny cupcakes before going into the hot tub to relax our muscles and eat our dishes of fruit and yogurt.  It was a great day, but we all want to do the intended 8 1/2 mile loop on another day when we have more daylight hours to do it.