Day 12 (16.7 mi) Outerbridge Shelter: Happy Newt Day!

I was very anxious about hiking in the rain, and the forecast was calling for lots of it.  I am fairly amazed at how many people go on long distance hikes, or any backpacking trip for that matter, and do not check the forecast.  I will also somewhat shamelessly admit that having an iPhone doesn't help my obsession of checking the radar.  I must have checked it 20x between the hours of 4.30am (when I awoke) and 6.30am (when I left the shelter).  Yes, a bit much, I agree.

Much to my relief, the weather didn't actually stir up until about 10am.  By then I had hiked over half of my day's journey.  As the rain fell, I could feel my own internal longing for a place to rest (and get dry).  There were lots of rocks along the route (go figure), and I took it especially slow when i met them considering the previous day's cranial interaction with rocks.  There were two major climbs down the rocky faces where I was climbing as much as I was hiking.  In reality, the forecast was not as brutal as what I had imagined.
The upside to the damp weather was the appearance of red newts.  If I was answering a multiple choice question prior to my hike about the presence of red newts in PA, I would have certainly answered false.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I must have seen 100, and it was delightful.  Red newts had always been like the Yeti in my childhood; mysterious and elusive, and the pictures that I saw of them were met with deep skepticism.  Yet now, I have seen them on three different occasions in three different states.  They really do thrive in the foggiest of days, when the humidity is well over 100%.  Honestly, there were stretches where I had to consciously watch my step that I did not trample them.
Through out the day, the weather turned progressively better as did the terrain, apart from the final descent into Lehigh Gap.  I hiked the SuperFund mountaintop that was aparently damaged from some zinc mining accident.  Lehigh Gap was as precarious as anything I have hiked on the AT, and I was very thankful that I missed the PM rain while on the rocky precipice.  A quick mile uphill into the shelter left me with an entire afternoon to dry out at Outerbridge shelter.  A very interesting spring into a cut out aluminum pony keg was also a relief.  I spent the night with Sargent Sawyer who was also a short section hiker (4 nights) with thoughts of hiking the entire trail.  Someone had left a heap of snacks- power bars, pb crackers, and other goodies.  It is really fun to eat other people's food, and I really needed the extra calories.  I was certainly back into trail mode, regarding my calorie burning.  A day of steady rain was aided by the red newts, and my spirits did not dampen.