Back on the Trail

On the 14th, I did 19 miles and camped just after the South Highland Rd. On the 15th, I did 22.2 miles and camped at the Morgan Stewart Shelter. On the 16th, I did 20.6 miles and stayed at the Ten Mile River Shelter. On the 17th, I did 15.7 miles and stayed at the Stewart Hollow Brook Shelter. On the 18th, I did 2.6 miles and got picked up by my mom at the Dawn Hill Rd crossing, we stayed at a state park in Massachusetts that night. On the 19th, we drove to Gardiner and I stayed there until the 25th.

So I meant to write a post when I got picked up to get off the trail and then another as I was getting back on the trail but things came up; I was lazy and/or busy and I am just getting around to writing one now.

I learned that New York was tricky. Last post I was talking about how interesting the trail in New York was turning out to be. This did not remain the case. Apparently the state starts out with a really interesting section of trail that has a fair amount of steep sections and keeps me guessing on what is coming up. After that beginning section, the trail becomes rather boring. It transitions to mostly just a dirt track through the woods like the other states I've been in recently.

I did meet some great day and section hikers in this section though and had some great conversations. This is a good thing since, besides that, there was not much to make the trail entertaining. So, all in all, the last few days on the trail were uneventful.

On the night of the 17th, I looked at the guide book and started thinking that I didn't really feel like walking 10 miles the next day. I had been doing a fair number of miles fairly consistently and I was ready for a little break. I called my mom and arranged to be picked up at the road 2.6 miles from the shelter instead of 10. This made the last day on trail great. I got up late, slowing packed things up then hiked two miles and sat beside a river for three to four hours and just enjoyed myself. It worked out great, I felt better and the road crossing worked quite well.

Today we are getting back on trail at Crawford Notch, which is just south of Mt. Washington. This allows us to hit some of the nice mountains in New Hampshire as well as the whole of Maine. We plan on taking it relatively relaxed and have a great final month on the trail. This is also the one section of trail I feel like I might have bad cell reception. I don't know for sure but it is the most remote we get on the trail. Whatever happens signal-wise I will post something in a bit with some pictures of real mountains!

Miles != Smiles

On the 9th, I did 24.7 miles to Brink Road Shelter. On the 10th, I did 19.6 miles to High Point Shelter. On the 11th, I did 23.9 miles to Wawayanda Shelter. On the 12th, I did 19.2 miles and camped on the edge of Little Dam Lake. On the 13th, I did 15.6 miles and camped at West Mountain Shelter.

So doing a lot of miles is not overly enjoyable. There is a sense of accomplishment to some extent but, besides that, I can really only see net negatives. My feet hurt more than normal and I definitely miss some of the trail experience. I suspected this was going to be the case but I figured the states of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut were going to be boring sections of trail so I might as well plow through them.

So far, this has not been the case at all. I did a lot of miles (at least for me) to get through NJ in basically three days. It was not fun and I still can't really remember much of the trail. I just moved along and miles passed by. This was exacerbated by the second day being incredibly rainy and overall miserable.

The trail in New York so far has actually been awesome. It is harder than I expected but not outrageously tough. There are a ton of quite steep ups and downs but they are all short. This makes the trail interesting and fun without the grueling climbs of the larger mountains in other states. This has forced me to slow down a bit. It is hard for me to sustain a good speed while doing steep climbs over and over again.

In addition to forcing me to slow down, it has also caused me to want to slow down and actually experience the trail. This doesn't mean that I am doing like ten miles a day, but it has caused me to do a couple days under twenty miles. I still basically walk from 8am to 8pm but I take more breaks and move slower. It is a beautiful section of trail but doing it solo means I might as well walk most of the day. I will still definitely make it to Conn. but I don't think I will make Mass. and I don't think that I want to seriously try anymore. I don't want to push miles through NY and miss what is turning out to be an awesome section. If the trail gets boring I might up my mileage but we shall see.

The End of PA

On the 31st, we did 5.7 miles to Windsor Furnace Shelter. On the 1st, we did 9.6 miles to a campsite half a mile past Eckville Shelter. On the 2nd, we zeroed at the campsite. On the 3rd, we did 12.9 miles to a campsite at the power line two miles after PA 309. On the 4th, we did 11.9 miles into Palmerton. On the 5th, we did 15.6 miles to Leroy A. Smith Shelter. On the 6th, we zeroed there. On the 7th, we did 13.8 miles to Kirkridge Shelter. On the 8th, we did 6.5 miles to Delaware Water Gap.

The trail leaving Port Clinton was quite monotonous and relatively easy. Our mileage was at least partially controlled by where there were water sources. I have heard many people complain about the rocks of Pennsylvania but it was the water sources that I found most annoying about the state. Rocks aren't even my second least favorite thing about PA, that belongs to the trail itself. I don't really remember a single interesting part of the trail for the 220 miles in this state. The rocks probably do make it in at number three, though. But back to water, it is typical for PA to have 12 to 15 miles stretches without a water source. This limits the miles I am willing to do since I find it much more enjoyable to camp at a water source. If I hit a water source 12 miles into my day, and there isn't any more water for 10 or more miles, I guess I just go 12 miles. I find that better than having to carry a ton of water or being sparing with what I do carry. I sweat a rather impressive amount and on a typical day of hiking I can easily drink 4 liters of water. Hopefully water troubles are less as I move north.

The next relatively interesting thing to happen after Port Clinton was going into Palmerton. We hadn't planned on going to this town but it turns out there isn't a laundromat at Delaware Water Gap and it needed to be done. The whole town experience didn't start well; we couldn't get a hitch. After trying for a bit, we just decided to walk into town--roughly 2 miles. The place we were going to stay was a free hostel in the basement of one of the town's municipal buildings. After checking in at the police station, we went to check it out. It was a damp basement with a large pile of paint cans in one corner and some wooden bunks along the back wall. It was far from the nicest place, but the price was right. It also succeeded in the task of providing a shower and laundry.

Leaving Palmerton was a nice rock scramble up the side of a mountain and then a four-mile trail redirection to go around the Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund site. I guess PA wasn't happy with being a boring, rocky, dry wasteland, it had to go further. There also wasn't water for 16 miles and that water source was .6 miles off the trail. It is frustrating to know that after you hike most of the day you still have over a mile to go just to get water. Hopefully these sort of days are behind me as I hike over the river and leave PA behind.

By far, the most interesting thing to happen in PA came the evening before Delaware Water Gap. As I was hiking, I heard a scream up ahead of me. I came around the corner to find a woman laying face down in the jagged rocks of the trail. I went up to her and noticed blood on the rocks. She had smashed her temple into the rocks (causing a gash to the bone), hit her knee pretty good and basically scraped and cut most of her body. As I helped her sit up, she said she had some rib pain and it hurt to take deep breaths. After a 911 call, it was deemed that they would send a crew into the woods for her and I should stay with her until they showed up. In my mind this wasn't a huge operation--just follow the white blazes from the road. I was wrong. UV caught up and she went ahead to meet the rescue crew. When she met them, they were confused and apparently didn't understand the blazing system and thought they were going to get an ATV all the way to us. A rather large rock formation was between us and the road so that wasn't happening. The attempt to use a helicopter to locate us was an utter failure; no surprise, since we were under dense canopy cover. After 2.5 hours, they got to us and I could move on. I was warned before going that it was dangerous and the rocks were "really bad"; after all, the rocks helped cause this "clusterfuck" as the member of the rescue team pointed out. I assured them I would be fine and moved on. After the rock formation, I met UV at the ATV and other rescuers and they insisted on escorting us to the road "for our safety." We got to the road at about 10 o'clock at night and happily waved to the 3 fire trucks, 2 ambulances, and 2 search and rescue vehicles while we went back into the woods to the shelter half a mile further on. Quite an eventful evening.

Well, that's PA done. Tomorrow it is on to New Jersey. UV is getting off the trail here to go back to DC for wedding things and I won't see her again until we meet up in Maine for the New England part of our hike. Over the next 9 days I'm going to really push miles and see what I can do. 18 miles a day gets me to Connecticut and 22 miles a day gets me to Mass. I'm very confident in the 18 and we will see about the 22.