Back in New England

On the 20th I slack packed 17.8 miles and stayed in Delaware Water Gap again. On the 21st I did 17.7 miles and stealth camped a mile after Sunrise Mountain. On the 22nd I did 28.3 miles and stealth camped half a mile after NJ 94. On the 23rd I did 23.7 miles and stealth camped along Little Dam Lake. On the 24th I did 29.5 miles and stealth camped a mile after US 9. On the 25th I did 18.3 miles and stayed at RPH shelter. On the 26th I did 16.8 miles and stayed at Telephone Pioneers shelter. On the 27th I did 21.2 miles and stayed at Mt Algo shelter. On the 28th I did 19.7 miles and stayed at the Sharon Mountain campsite.

So it's been a while since my last post. 200 miles in fact. I'll try my best to get through it. Hopefully I can make myself write a post more often. It takes a lot less time when it hasn't been so long.

This section started with the Post Office sending my food drop to the wrong zip code for general delivery. This delayed the box and held me in Delaware Water Gap longer then I had planned. The people I was hiking with didn't even spend one night in town and I ended up spending two. Luckily, instead of taking a zero on the 21st I paid someone to slack pack me. Slack packing is when you get driven up the trail and you hike back to wherever your stuff is. This allows you to basically carry nothing makes the miles easier. I had never bothered before now but it was my only real way to get some

miles in so I figured why not. It was a beautiful day, it's amazing how pretty New Jersey is.

The following day was the summer solstice, or more importantly hike naked day! While many people only do it for a short period of the day, if they do it at all, I did 15 miles with a bandana as my only concealment. The day was full of fantastic interactions with day hikers since it was a Saturday. Two of my favorites include the older couple walking their dog. We held a five minute conversation without me or them mentioning my attire, or lack of, and then we wished each other a good day and moved on. The other favorite was some who at least claimed to be a reporter and decided she wanted to interview me. I agreed and she whipped out her iPhone for a quick video interview. That will probably live on the internet somewhere. It was a great day complete with a fantastic sunset.

After that I did some big miles and caught back up with people. It wasn't actually as hard as I had thought it would be. The only major incident of those days was my lunchtime bear encounter. I had already seen multiple bears in Jersey but this one surprised me. I was sitting on a stone wall along the trail at a road crossing eating lunch and I heard something behind me. I turn around and a rather large bear sedately walks through the stone wall, looks me up and down, then continues on. I wasn't fast enough with my camera to get the look but I got the bear. Besides that the only interesting thing is state lines. 

All in all this section of trail is just beautiful. The woods of southern New York and New Jersey are just amazing. Even having done them before I was still surprised by how nice they are. If you are ever looking for a relatively easy section of the AT to do but you want it to be beautiful definitely look at this section as an option.

Well I have 9 states down and I'm back in New England. Hopefully it won't be over a week until my next post but who knows.