Beginner Friendly Backpacking Lehigh Gap with two hikes (join for any part!)

You are welcome to join for either hike (Saturday or Sunday), but primarily this is a beginner friendly backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail. The Sunday hike will be more challenging and it is more bouldering at the beginning than hiking. There are not bathrooms along the way (shovels are your friend), and there will be an unfiltered water source (spring) on Saturday night about 1/4 mile from our campsite. If you sign up for this, you must send me a facebook messenger message so we can set up a chat to coordinate (facebook messenger ID is jph183psu ).

https://appalachiantrail.org/explore/hike-the-a-t/interactive-map/

If you want to meet for Saturday's hike, just show up at 1PM, and if you want to meet up for Sunday's hike, show up at noon.

****** ITINERARY *******

SATURDAY 1:00PM: meet at “Blue Mountain Loop trailhead parking” in Slatington, PA 18080. If this lot is filled we can also leave cars at the D&L Trail Parking which is a short walk… We will hike up about 2 miles with 1000 feet of elevation to the campsite and set up to get a good spot and setup camp.
4:00 - Four mile hike along the ridge (without our gear) which is a loop
5:30 Collect Firewood
6:30 Start the campfire
7PM Sunset... Cook dinner... Enjoy drinks by the fire overlooking Palmerton and Bowmanstown (remember that beer is heavy)

SUNDAY: 8:00-10AM... Wakeup, cook breakfast pack up camp
10-11AM.. Hike back down to cars and drop off backpacks.
11AM-11:30... Get cleaned off in the river with a nice "backpackers shower".
11:30-3:30PM... Hike 5 mile Lehigh Gap East loop which is Extremely steep/bouldering/climbing
3PM... Go grab a bite to eat

GEAR: Personally, I haven't wanted to invest a lot of money into equipment, so I buy a lot of low cost, light weight stuff on Amazon. Here is a list of equipment I have and some others have recommended:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/112puusaFbO3K5CFUOX-xpuQUk3nw7KFfCVI0pocmNK0/edit?usp=sharing
You MUST have GOOD hiking shoes for this, not sneakers.

FOOD: weight is something to consider. I eat a LOT of the Mountainhouse freeze dried food while backpacking. It is about $10 a meal, but I think they are pretty good and they have a lot of calories which is good for these trips..... its only one night so keep it simple: Granola bars, tuna pouches and tortilla wraps, PB&J, beef jerkey, oatmeal, dehytraded fruit, backpackers pantry/peak refuel dehydrated meals (these brands are pretty good and usually a couple bucks cheaper at Sierra)

Alcohol.. You can bring it, but remember that beer is heavy and you are carrying everything up a mountain.

Feel free to join on the full event, or either the hike on Saturday, or the on Sunday with meeting times and locations extracted from the writeup above ;)