July 13, 2011
Start: 1298.9 Rattlesnake Spring
End: 1316.7 Gren Anderson shelter.
Total: 17.8 miles.
Today I wake up to see sunny skys quickly turning gray. My phone says that its sunny though and I choose to believe it. I meet to photographers shooting Rhododendrens when I exit camp, and I'm surprised that I didn't hear them, they said they were already shooting for an hour, one hundred yards from my tent.
Today is cruising terrain again, but the rocky tread is killing my feet through my worn shoes. I'm getting a new pair tomorrow though. It will be like Christmas, new shoes, insoles, and gaiters. Just thirty nine more miles. Until then though I must keep wincing on the jagged rocks.
Trail magic comes in the form of a cooler full of Pepsi. I'm not that into soda, and though I appreciate a free pop, I don't think these people get what hikers really want. Super sweet pop isn't really desired. Hikers really want cold beer. The carbohydrates, in beer really help.
I'm not planning to go off trail today, but there is a fishing community surrounded by lakes, that the trail passes through. The closest business, right next to the trail, Joe to Go allegedly doesn't treat hikers great according to Awol's book. They're closed, but at first glance they look friendly. There are scenes of backpackers painted on the window. A sign by the door though shows them to be jerks, "Hikers park your gear and rear on bench on the side." Great if you go to they're business, they want your money so little that they make you sit outside around back in direct sun on a crappy bench. Not a nice place. I decide to get food at the next business that's open, Gyp's Tavern, named after the Gypper, Babe Ruth. They have plenty of pictures of him in the place, along with hundreds of police patches. The big draw is the cheap fried food menu, which I go to town on. I order Freedom Fries (so 2003), pierogies, mozzarella sticks, jalepeno poppers, a cheeseburger, and a second order of freedom fries. I wash it down with a Yuengling, and then wait out a monsoon on the back covered deck by a huge lake.
After heading back a hundred yards to the trail, I run into Charter. Charter, like most Appalachian trail hikers is someone I'm only meeting once. He's coming back from the Blue Ribbon restaurant where they make hikers eat outside. I say I hope you didn't tip them then, he didn't. Charter and I hang out for an hour, and he relates to me how awful Lyme disease is. He's got it and it sucks. Charter says his lymphnodes in his neck and armpits swelled up like golf balls, and he kept falling asleep. Besides that his joints hurt so bad, his doctor prescribed Vicadin for the pain. Doxicyclene was the antibiotic.
My mileage shot for the day, I continue to the next water, which is nearbye at a shelter. There's too many bugs, so I tent, safe from the mosquito behind mesh. I can't wait to get my presents tomorrow.
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July 14, 2011
Start: 1316.7 Gren Anderson Shelter in tent.
End: 1342.1 Pochuck mtn shelter.
Total: 25.4 miles
Today I wake up early with one thought on my mind, run post office run. I'm pounding trail by 7:15, I need to hit the Unionville, Ny. post office by five. Only nineteen miles away, but I have no clue if the trail will be rocky, or cruising so I just start early and go fast all day.
Two and a half miles after I start walking on this cool, crisp morning, I come across an awesome ramada at the top of a mountain. This would be the perfect spot to camp. The cool breeze would have kept the mosquitos at bay. There is plenty of graffiti, but it is all peace signs, rainbows, "You are beautiful!", and praises of how hot Justin Beiber is. Apparently some 13 year old girls found some paint, and also were motivated to hike. What nice pleasant Beiberfitti. Such a change from the usual statements proclaiming the need to smoke weed, or the promotion of hate. A lady comes by with a nice Corgy and we chat a few minutes.
Run town run is on though and I fly down the trail. At the Mashipacong shelter a trail angel has left three, five gallon cubes of water, and I grab the last liter after dumping the liter I got and didn't touch at a dank stream flowing from a swamp. The dumped water was the color of very dark tea, or maybe weak coffee.
I get to High Point State Park much earlier then I expect, and take a break in the shade. The water fountain was a treat. After leaving, I come to a observation platform that is apparently modeled after a gallows, and I can't get Robert Plant out of my head. From it I see the 220 foot tall obelisk atop the highest point in New Jersey, a 1700 foot ridge. You know a mountain isn't that impressive, when you need to build a 1/2 size Washington monument on top to get people to notice.
I rush on over wet trail. A elevated stretch on wooden planks lasts at least a block. Then I cross several glacial morraines. I finally get to Lott road at three in the afternoon. Marking a very fast morning, 20.1 miles by three is a personal record. My package is there, my shoes, gaiters, and insoles. The gaiters from Dirty Girl Gaiters are pretty awesome, bright tye-dyed, with peace signs on them. Not only do they look really cool, they will keep rocks and forest debris out of my shoes while hiking. A twenty dollar bill in the box convinces me to eat pizza across the street at Annabelles. Like every business run and staffed by our neighbors to the south, the service and food quality were absolutely excellent. I ate half my large sausage pie, the other half went in a box that I carried back to the trail.
I'm waiting for crazy glue to dry on my shoes, where I affixed the Telco strip that will hold my gaiters on my shoes, so I head across the street to the small park. This park, according to Awol, is open for hikers to camp there is even a port-a-pottie. A new board on the sign with all the parks rules and regs states though, "Absolutely no camping in the park." Some hiker must have got caught being bad.
I cross back to New Jersey as I head back to the trail, and soon am walking down the Appalachian trail, pizza box in hand. Thor a ridgerunner that I meet, tells me about his job for the ATC. He gets nine bucks an hour, forty hours a week to hike around and ask people how there doing, and report trail conditions. He says he doesn't have to pay rent either, on his days off the ATC supplies him with a old FEMA trailer left over from Hurricane Katrina.
The AT turns to a paved road for a while then goes nearly all the way around a large man-made swamp, the Wallkill Preserve which is a avian sanctuary. Large Herons scatter as I walk around this mile long mosquito pit. A doe with two spotted fawns also run into the woods, scared by me from drinking the bog water.
The trail climbs from the swamp lowlands, and a side trail leads me to water from a spigot at a abandoned house. I climb higher to another side trail, this one leading to Pochuck mountain shelter. There's a nice campsite at the trail junction, so I take it. There may be people at the shelter, as I here a dog barking. Though more then likely it is empty as there isn't a water source here.
I'm very thankful for the nice cool breeze this evening.
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