Bake Oven Knob

Bake Oven Knob Shelter image from Travelblog
A couple of readers wanted to know why we were holding out on the Bake Oven Knob tale mentioned last week, so for you guys, here it is...

The Bake Oven Knob Shelter in the Lehigh Valley, about 20 miles from Allentown, can best be described as a log version of a bus shelter. It's meant to provide a sleepover spot for bird watchers or a few campers as they hike the Appalachian Trail.

It's not a place for the faint of heart. You have to clamber uphill over a boulder field to get to the site. Once you're there, don't count on getting a good night's rest.

Very weird things happen around the Knob. The forest can turn from bright sunlight to complete darkness within a couple of steps. And at night, you can hear eerie murmurs and whispers in the woods, often followed by the Bake Knob beast.

One group saw a huge, shadowy entity 500 feet away from the shelter coming up Kittatinny Ridge in the middle of the night. It frightened them so much that they rolled up their sleeping bags, stuffed their gear into their rucksacks, and stumbled up the trail in the darkness rather than wait to get close up and personal with their visitor.

No one knows for sure if there's a spirit that haunts the Kittatinny ridge, but a frightful creature has been associated with the area since the days of the Delaware Indians.

It could be a misty spook; no one has ever been able to describe it with any more detail than as a glowing, red-eyed blob. Some speculate that it's a Blue Mountain Bigfoot, or maybe just a noisy feral woodland critter.

In addition, there's a local legend of a ghostly hiker, the shade of an outdoor enthusiast who fell to his death from Bake Knob's outlook and still walks the trails.

So hey, spend the day spook-hunting at the sanctuary, then cross the Kittatinny ridge and spend the night at the shelter. See what trick or treats this Halloween holds...