Chapter 14 Summary

With a bad map and a longing for the "old days" of hiking with Katz, Bryson drives from Harpers Ferry to a trailhead in Pennsylvania, hoping for at least a taste of the state's challenging rocky terrain. He happens to be hiking in a general area where two pairs of well-known murders had occurred several years before, which he knows, because he has been reading up on the subject. A short hike up to a place called Pine Mountain is disappointing and leaves him wondering what the point is in hiking the trail in such small chunks.

Bryson drives north, searching unsuccessfully for a satisfying piece of trail to hike. He passes through the strange town of Centralia, which is deserted, because the enormous anthracite coal bed on which it is situated was accidentally ignited decades before and is still slowly burning underground...