Appalachian Trail: Little to Lehigh Gap and Back (10-May-2016)

The original plan for today was to do a recycling day. I have over a months worth of collected recyclables to go through and take down to the recycling center. The rain made me decide against it and I ended up going to Little Gap. I do go to this area often and there always is trash. For this hike I wanted to go out to Lehigh Gap and back and did so by taking the access road out and the Appalachian Trail back. 

Every hike up this mountain I seem to find something old that I have missed on all of the other trips up. This time it was a Zima bottle and I don't know how I missed it on other hikes up. The other bottle was new, didn't find much else on the ascent.

Often there is new trash at this big rock pile on top of the mountain. This time I found very little. A couple bottles and a few cans. 

 Again there were old items that I missed before and newer items.

Green Briar is one of my favorite plants. Picking trash out of it isn't something I like to do. Didn't loose too much blood, however some was lost in retrieving this item. 

Looking back towards Little Gap on the Northampton County side of the mountain. I checked this rock outcrop for trash, but like the last rock pile there wasn't much. 

Went to get the Gatorade bottle and I found the brush. It looked as though someone was trying to paint the rocks with blue makeup with that brush. Glad they didn't have paint. This section of rock is one of the few in this section without graffiti.

Took the AT back, a long portion of it overlooks Palmerton.

This was not something I expected to find today. It looks like a trail log box, but instead it is a geocache. I am not a fan of Geocaching. In many cases new trails are made where they shouldn't be to get to the boxes and I have found a good number of caches in sensitive areas. What is the appeal of finding a box in the middle of the woods with moldy items in it? This particular box would be much better suited as an owl box.

Looking towards the Lehigh River on the Carbon County side of the mountain. 

The factory at the base of the mountain was used to refine zinc and is the reason this area is considered a superfund site. The process released heavy metals into the air which fell on the mountain and surrounding area in rain. For many years there was little to no vegetation on this portion of the mountain. Recovery efforts are still being made, but as you can see there is a lot of green on the mountain now. 

Some of the original trees that were on the mountain still stand. Preserved and protected by the heavy metals they have been dead and standing for decades. Only about ten years ago the entire mountain side and top looked like the photo on the right with a little less green.

This was the most I found at any one spot on the entire hike. All of this was near a campsite.

The rocky path back to the bottom of the gap. 

Filled my pack. I thought there would be more. Always a good trip when I find less trash than expected. 

This isn't the greatest photo, but it is the first Scarlet Tanager this year for me. It wouldn't come down into better lighting, I really was just happy to see it. 

Prairie Warblers were the most common birds on the hike. Heard and saw them all over the top of the mountain. 

Throughout my hike I found several large ant mounds. All had a lot of activity with hundreds of ants moving in and out of the mounds. The ones above are specifically, Allegheny Mound Ants. They are common in this area. From what I have seen they are only found at higher elevations with somewhat sandy soil. 

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

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State Gamelands (15-Feb-2016)

Not nearly as cold as yesterday or the day before, so I decided to get out on a hike. With the snow coverage and the potential for snow while I was out I did not think I would find any trash. Just going out with that expectation always seems to lead me to some. 

I had Penny along and our goal was to go to the top of the Appalachian near Little Gap. Even with the snow it is an easy hike and one I do often. On most trips I follow the AT or an access road out to a power line cut with a rock pile that is a popular spot and is almost always filled with litter. On this trip we just went to the top and took some side trails to overlook Carbon County.  

The AT used to bend over to this side of the mountain, but has been moved to the south. There are many old campsites in this section and there are a lot of parties at these sites in the summer. These campsites are on state gamelands, now far from the AT, it is unlawful to have fires or alcoholic beverages on the gamelands. People don't read the laws or just don't care. Above is the first fireplace I came across. Buried in the snow were multiple cans, once removed I started looking around this old campsite.

I kept finding more and more, mostly down hill from the site. I am sure with the snow there were things that I missed, but I did the most thorough job possible under the current conditions.

This was everything found around the campsite. I checked a couple more, they didn't look like they had been used any time in the recent past though. The above also ended up being everything for the day. Not a single item along the trail up or back. 

Who takes a spray bottle of pesticides with them on a hike or camping? When you enter the woods, you are walking into the home of a multitude of organisms, small and large. Most belong there and each has its own specific role. For the most part insects will leave you alone and a spray that you would apply to yourself would work much better than a product like this. Any trash is awful to find on a hike, this is worse than awful. 

Several of the cans I found today had frozen contents that I had to remove before placing in my pack. This was from one of the cans. You might not be able to make out what was inside, but I can tell you there were at least two rodents and some native beetles in this one. As I stated above, native animals big or small have their own place in our woodland ecosystems and every species is important to maintain a healthy ecosystem. In this case rodents serve as food to animals higher up on the food chain and the beetles are often decomposers which eliminate carrion. I find way too many upright cans that act as traps as these did. Just one or two might not make a difference, but it is very common to find this. I will also add that the liquidy mixture of alcohol and decaying animal matter in one of the cans today was not a pleasant thing to get on me and was the only thing I could smell all the way home. It took a lot of scrubbing to get the odor off of my hands. 

Not a full pack, yet close. For a day not expecting to find any trash it was a large haul. 

This was the first trash item I found today when I pulled into the parking lot. I left it to the end of this post because it is not the most delightful image to start off with. It seems at least once a week I come across a new illegal dump. I have no where to take large items like this so for now it isn't something I can deal with. Someone also placed a futon frame in a rock pile across the street from this lot sometime last year. That is still there as well. If you ever see someone illegally dumping items, please take down their license plate number and call law enforcement. 

No wildlife on the hike, except for the mouse and beetle popsicle in a can, but when I got home this American Goldfinch was visiting one of my feeders. At this time of year both male and female American Goldfinches are just about the same color. As time passes closer to spring the males will slowly reveal a more brighter and brighter yellow head, chest and back. I believe this individual is a male that has already started his color change. Females will keep their brown to light yellow color throughout the year. In many species of birds females often have much duller colors. It is thought that this helps camouflage them from predators, especially useful when vulnerable on a nest or with young. 

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

Appalachian Trail (18-Oct-2015)

It was a cold one out there today. Put in a lot of time hiking and came up with a little less than half a bag of trash. For me that is a good day. Started at the bottom of Little Gap and hiked up to the top of the east side. It has been over a year since I have gone this way and I wanted to check out an outcrop that can be a mess sometimes. 

For the most part this trail was clean. It is a harder hike than the west side of the gap and that could be the reason for the lack of trash or an Appalachian Trail group may have cleaned this section recently. 

Not the easiest section of AT in the area. 

This is the outcrop where I thought I was going to find a lot of trash. On first glance there was nothing. I just knew there were items somewhere here, so I started exploring. If you have never seen a snow shower from a distance take a good look at the background in this photo. While I was out today I watched several showers move in and pass over the mountain. 

At the bottom of the outcrop I found this bag and plastic snack items. Then I found a couple cans and kept looking around. 

When I saw this overhang I knew there would at least be a couple pieces tucked away in it.

I was right. The overhang had its own little trash crevice. I cleaned this out completely with my tongs and was surprised by the amount I pulled out. I could only see as much as is in these photos. 

All of this was taken out of that small crevice. When I would go to remove one can I could hear others rattle around. One after another they came out and then an empty bag of granola too. Eighteen cans total came out of the space I could only see four in. I then did a sweep of the area and headed back to the trail. Kept going for a little while and it started snowing and I wasn't finding any trash. I decided to turn around and go back. At the bottom it was sunny again and I ended up hiking up the west side.

The trail heading west in Little Gap is very popular. This means there is often trash on the trailside and I do clean this area often. It doesn't help that there is a lot of Green Briar along the trail. The tongs helped out considerably with this one. 

It was nice and sunny at the top, with spectacular views.

Too many times I have gone to this site and seen these three items. They were tucked way back in a large opening in the rocks. I have tried multiple times to fish them out with sticks and never had any luck. The tongs made quick work of it and they are finally off the mountain. 

I watched a large snow shower move in from the northern valley and when it hit the mountain we decided to leave. Wasn't it in the 90's a couple weeks ago? 

Somehow I spotted this on the way out. I would like to point out it is not environmentally friendly to use rechargeable batteries if you end up leaving them in the woods.  

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