Day 15: Thursday, August 28

At the infamous Microtel in Hamburg, PA (left AT at SOBO mi 971.7), walked 18.0 miles today

As expected, there was serious rain not long after going to sleep last night, but the storm system apparently brought much colder temperatures in its wake, because we were cold waking up and cold walking the first few miles in the morning. Couldn't have been more than 55 degrees; it was also breezy and thus very autumnal-feeling. My legs, after yesterday's failure at pacing, could proverbially have had a fork stuck in them--they were done, and I was mentally done with the shittastic rocky trail, to the point where I proclaimed in the first shelter register I came across that four of the previous miles were "unquestionably the shittiest of the 2185." Probably not the proudest thing I've ever written in one of those books, but I was not a happy hiker for most of today. All I wanted to do was _walk_, have some kind of peaceful consistent stroll on my last day of non-Maine AT, and the trail wouldn't allow it. I had to skip, jump, slip, hoist, roll my ankle five more times, etc. I actually have a blister on my right foot now, the first one in 4500 miles. Thank you, mid-Atlantic Appalachian Trail.

Took a really nice break after 7.5 miles (three hours of nonstop hiking, i.e. really slow) at the Eckville Shelter, which is in someone's backyard, then about three and a half trail miles later noticed a shortcut in the guidebook, which I took. Had a feeling that there wouldn't be much reward in staying on the white-blazed AT, which was on a gravel ATV/snowmobile track through dense woods for about five miles; at the end of the day I talked to Princess, who had been well behind me and followed the white blazes, and she concurred and wished she'd taken the shortcut instead. Even now, lying in a hotel bed and not in a bad mood at all, it's hard to see the point in sticking to the pure trail in that environment when you have faster alternatives. It really is pretty goddamn worthless. At any rate, the shortcut saved me about four miles and was a nice mental boost. The last five miles, back on the real AT, shouldn't have been a breeze (they were rocky and steep) but they were because I had my headphones in, was ahead of schedule thanks to the shortcut, and was in general feeling much better about everything.

Got to the road in Port Clinton around 4:30pm and after about 10 minutes was given a ride to the Cabela's in Hamburg by local hero Chris (such a euphonious name). Even though I knew what was coming, having been in there with Perro three years ago, I was still taken aback by how enormous and excessive it is, and how many mounted animals there are in that store. It's in the hundreds, not the dozens. I didn't actually need anything in Cabela's, I just wanted to reminisce a bit--in 2011 Perro and I were given a ride there on a very rainy day, looking like drowned rats, with me on my stress-fractured leg, and then the AYCE buffet upstairs really did seem like a promised land, albeit a weird one with things like the 11th-largest polar bear ever shot standing nearby. Walking over from Cabela's to the Microtel--taking 20 minutes because of the pedestrian-unfriendliness of the whole megaplex--also brought back memories from three years back, namely of me being unable to walk more than a minute or so on pavement without a break. The front desk of the hotel still had me on file as a returning customer from then. Got set up in a decent room, cleaned up, did laundry, then headed over to the Taco Bell once I had a text from Princess saying she'd reached the highway, figuring that she'd ask to be dropped off South of the Border by whomever she ended up hitching with. That was correct, and we rendezvoused over Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Supremes (I'd never had a Dorito Loco before, and now I see what all the fuss is about). Then her boyfriend, Brian, showed up, having driven up from DC, and I retired to my room at the hotel. After an hour or two messing with the blog and the internet and whatnot, I got a very unexpected phone call from Mr. Perro himself. He a) couldn't believe that I was finishing out the AT and back in the fuckin' Hamburg Microtel--to be honest, I barely could either--and b) expressed some interest in flying up to Maine from NC next weekend to climb Katahdin with me and maybe go camping with A-GAME (2011 AT friend of ours who lives in Maine now) afterward. I said fuck yeah to both, and now maybe that's going to be a thing.

The length and looseness of this post should be an indicator that this is a different type of day for me. I was very tired of the trail at the beginning--more upset with it than I've ever been at any point on the AT, never mind the PCT which I love almost unconditionally and simply didn't have bad days on. And once I got to town, I also had a whole bunch of strong and kind of funny memories of how utterly miserable it was when I was here before. This highway megaplex in Hamburg really is an odd place to be making a triumphant personal return to, since it has absolutely nothing to do with the trail and is in fact pretty antithetical to the aesthetic of the trail, just happens to be a mile or so from it. But I'm here now, I'm calling the shots instead of a dumb broken leg, and now I'm about to fly up to Maine and finish the AT beeyotch! That's about all I have to say now. Two days of transit, and then the Hundred Mile Wilderness begins. 

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Day 14: Wednesday, August 27

In the Allentown Hiking Club Shelter (AT SOBO mi 949.4), walked 20.7 miles today

Woke up around 6:30 and was walking by 7:10, waiting for Princess because we both knew I needed her for the hitch to Walnutport in a few miles. Whatever horrible environmental things they did to the Superfund hill to get it mostly devoid of trees, I'm not complaining (kind of like how wildfires out West, even though they suck, make for dramatically and eerily lit photos sometimes), because the views down into the fog bowl of the Lehigh Valley were prime. We got to watch the fog burn off over an hour or so, then it was time for the fun stuff--the ridiculous boulder scramble at the top of the Lehigh Gap climb that is somewhat legendary on the AT. Got some more vertical vistas and a couple of great photos, then made it down by 9am or so to the road for Palmerton/Walnutport. We chose the latter because it met our needs (breakfast and light resupply) better and seemed like an easier hitch. All goals were indeed accomplished, although we spent wayyy too much time in the McDonald's, where we got several not-so-subtle side glances walking in with our packs, and it was past 11 before leaving town in the back of some dude's pickup. 

By then it was oppressively hot and windless, and would remain so the rest of the day. Less than a mile up from the road was the best water source of my whole CT-PA section, a veritable fire hose of a piped spring with ice cold water shooting out, so we stopped and luxuriated there along with Shinbone, a young whippersnapper of a SOBO whom Princess already knew. Then it was noon and time to do sixteen more miles. It happened, but there's not much more to add than that. Most of the time it was easy, sometimes it was hard, the whole time it was really really hot and still. The last four miles started in the gloaming and ended in more or less total darkness (I forget what the stages of twilight are; it was the last one, whatever that's called). Around 8 we rolled in to this shelter--I personally would've stopped earlier except for ominous rolls of thunder above--and found it gloriously unoccupied, meaning we didn't have to disturb and apologize to people, which I was all geared up to do. Rain hasn't started yet but it seems only a matter of time. Feeling a bit exhausted after making a production out of what ought to have been a comfortable day, but the fact that I'm taking two or three zero days starting Friday, in transit up to Maine, means it's less important to be steady and sustainable right now. 22 miles to Port Clinton tomorrow and then I'm finished with the southernmost 2063 miles of the trail.

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Day 13: Tuesday, August 26

Tenting on the trail somewhere in the Palmerton Superfund site (AT SOBO mi ~928.7) walked ~21.3 miles today

Got up at 7 sharp and by 7:30 was out and moving, well ahead of Princess. After about four miles I was at the road for Wind Gap, PA, with a hankerin' for some breakfast and some laundry, but no one in their car would pick up dusty old Scrub so I had to walk about a mile into town before stumbling upon a laundromat with a gas station/c-store across the street. "That'll do," I said to myself, and proceeded to get most of my clothes clean and consume some gas station food and a quart of whole milk for breakfast. While I was being trashy huddling in the corner of the laundromat in my rain gear with my milk carton, hogging the one electrical outlet to charge my phone (hikers will recognize this scene), Princess texted to ask where I was; she had been picked up within 30 seconds of sticking her thumb out and had been taken to a different laundromat a mile away, so she stuck her thumb out again and in 30 seconds got picked up and taken to the one I was at. After a quick and very unhealthy resupply at the gas station (Snickers and Swedish fish being the two staples), local hero and friend of the trail Keith offered us a ride from the parking lot and we were back on around 11.

The trail, to put it bluntly, was shit for about eight miles south of Wind Gap. Not content with letting it be just rocky, the maintaining club in that section (the AMC again, surprise surprise) had left it overgrown with weeds, narrow and winding through dull featureless forest. The abject shittiness let up after a time and the final few miles down to the next road/landmark, Little Gap, were manageable. There was no natural water within a mile of the trail all day, so I relied on Gatorade from the initial town stop and H2O caches (one at a shelter, one at the road at Little Gap) to get by.

After Little Gap, where we supped, it was a short climb up to this odd environment, the Superfund site, which has something to do with a century of (probably poorly regulated) zinc mining and smelting in the area. It's dry and rocky/dusty and there aren't many trees, which gives it a bit of a Hat Creek Rim feel (PCT), except it's three miles long instead of twenty. It was great for walking in the evening because the sun was setting and we could see for miles in many directions over civilization. The trail itself was the only flat and soft place we saw after about a mile of looking, and we know no one's hot on our heels and we're getting up early tomorrow anyway, so we pitched our tents right in the middle of it like bosses. This has to rank as one of the most scenic, maybe *the* most scenic, tent sites I've had on the AT, this year or in 2011 when I hiked most of it. It doesn't quite touch some of the spots from the PCT last year, but at any rate, it was a fantastic evening walk and it'll be easy to get up tomorrow morning and make some miles, camped out in the open light as we are. 

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Day 12: Monday, August 25

Tenting somewhere in the eastern Pennsylvania wilderness (AT SOBO mi ~907.4), walked ~11.7 miles today

Slept in until 9 in the dark hostel bunkroom and then after some idling, slid to the town bakery for breakfast. Polished off an entire small blueberry pie and a large latte, then returned to the church and commenced the somewhat complicated process of figuring out how to get to Monson, Maine this weekend (this Labor Day Weekend, when all transport is under-supplied and over-demanded) once my PA section is over. After many transportation options were explored and all auxiliary parties were contacted, multiple times each, I came up with solution that is reliant on finishing in Port Clinton/Hamburg Thursday night. Then several people and travel legs later, I will be in Monson on Saturday. More details when that bridge is crossed.

The long and short of it was that I needed to hike today, so Princess and I set forth from town around 1pm, I with practically no food in my pack and she with about six days' worth because of a maildrop she just picked up. The climb out of the river gorge was quite tame, or at least I thought so, but led to some pretty dramatic views from the top, straight down on the river and the interstate and the bridge we'd crossed the afternoon prior. There were other dramatic views later, around what the guidebook says is Fox Gap. Those were nice until they were marred by the arrival of Car People, complete with Rambunctious Children and High-Strung Rude Parents, but in the few minutes of peace we had up there I was reminded of a great thing about the AT's vistas, at least in the southern half of the trail: they often look down on the civilization that one has just climbed up from, and as such give a real feeling of progress and remove from the hubbub down below. Of course there's also something to be said for looking out over endless untrammeled wilds--I was just reading the end of Carrot's 2014 PCT blog last night and there's a lot of endless untrammeled wilds in there, and I'd all but forgotten about that being a thing after almost two weeks on the mid-Atlantic AT--but to look down on school buses and semi trucks moving around like little toys a thousand feet beneath you is nice too.

After the late-afternoon break there, we weren't sure how much farther we wanted to go and the AWOL guidebook didn't give away much about landmarks between there and Wind Gap, 10 miles on, so we figured we'd go until we saw a nice place to camp just before dark, or until we got to Wind Gap if we were feeling up for a spot of night-hiking. The former ended up happening, and my mileage estimate is based only on very imprecise time-based reckoning. The last few miles were a taste of what everyone complains about in Pennsylvania--extremely rocky trail tread that forces you to hop and skip your way forward with an irregular stride for hundreds of yards at a time, then a one-minute or so break, then repeat. It's mentally exhausting more than anything and would have been awful to night-hike over, hence the throwing in of the towel early. Tomorrow, the town of Wind Gap in the a.m. for food and laundry and then miles and miles of rocky progress afterward. 

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Day 11: Sunday, August 24

In the Church of the Mountain hostel in Delaware Water Gap, PA (AT SOBO mi 895.7), walked 24.8 miles today

Woke up around 6:15 to my Sufjan alarm and, with all that quasi-holy piano music ringing around in my ears, couldn't bring myself to be remorselessly loud and dickish to the two guys who had showed up late to the shelter last night and were still passed out. Was out by 7:15, along with Princess. Just downhill from the shelter was the first nice spring I've seen so far in the section this year--ice cold water gurgling right up from the rocks--so I made sure to fill up there and drink untreated, with gusto, all morning. The right ankle felt mighty stiff at first, but after about an hour all pain and problems had utterly dissipated and I felt pretty strong for the remainder of the day.

Old Princess was not doing as well; she always has issues with foot tenderness and arch pain and all that hit peak intensity at about midday and she literally couldn't walk anymore, so we ended up stopping for a bit and going slower. I was going to make it to the DWG regardless of her progress today, and even with the delays we were still in good position to do that after breaking at a place called the Mohican Outdoor Center (Run by the AMC. 20oz Cokes for $2.75 each. Gag me.) and leaving around 3, with ten miles to go. Her feet got their act together after that break, aided by a large dose of ibuprofen, and we absolutely flew down the last 7 miles to town. We walk the exact same pace assuming normal health and it's the main reason I've ended up around her so much the past three days. Walked next to I-80 for the final two miles, including the crossing of the Delaware into Pennsylvania, and she waved at all the traffic with a regal wafting of the hand for almost the entire way. 

Got to the hostel to find the usual odd mix of characters who claim some association with trail. A possibly intoxicated local floated in to use the restroom, play me a tune on the guitar, then float out again; I later saw him walking down the street carrying only a cheese grater. Got showered up then ate a gargantuan eggplant parm plate for dinner from an Italian joint down the street. On the way there, stopped and watched Louie Setzer and the Appalachian Mountain Boys, a great bluegrass outfit of old men, playing a free show for the town in the park--it was a very Appalachian experience, hearing that high and lonesome music on a muggy night in a small-town park, something I couldn't have imagined happening just across the river in the New Jersey section of trail. But everything about it and the town just seemed to fit right; it's hard to describe, but the DWG already feels like much more of a real AT town than anything from the NJ-NY-CT sections ever did. It, or more properly the people at the hostel, also has a shady feel to it, enough that I'm not sure I'm interested in taking a zero tomorrow, which had been on the table as an option earlier.

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Day 10: Saturday, August 23

Tenting in the Brink Road Shelter (AT SOBO mi 870.9) like a motherfucking boss, walked 19.6 miles today

Woke up late with Smiley already long gone, aiming for a 30-miler, and didn't end up getting on the road til about 8:30. Soon got a look at High Point, the highest point in New Jersey, with some sort of Washington Monument-esque shelter on top of it, then started to descend to lower elevation before supplemental oxygen was required. As promised, the number and density of rocks on and in the trail increased dramatically south of High Point. Things came to a head when I rolled my right ankle worse than ever before, and there have been many times ... Thought I felt a little twinge or pop, sat on it for ten minutes and was able to continue, though for the rest of the day if I took a break off my feet for more than a minute it was stiff getting started again.

Stopped at a shelter for lunch, meeting a NOBO thru-hiker, surely one of the last, who talked to me in particular a lot about his career as a newspaper reporter. Since the morning, Princess and I had been eyeing the Dairy Queen in Branchville, NJ as a late-afternoon stop, so that became the focal point of the next eight miles or so. Branchville and its environs turned out to be among the least attractive town areas around the AT--I was trying to think of more charitable ways to describe it that didn't use the term "redneck," "trailer trash," or "wow this part of Jersey looks like absolute shit," but I failed, so there you go. Nonetheless, the Dairy Queen was a Dairy Queen, a large Oreo Blizzard is still a large Oreo Blizzard, and we hitched in and out easily thanks to local heroes Wendy and Julia, respectively.

It was very gray and threatening rain upon our return to the woods, and it wasn't very warm, so all that Dairy Queen was actually making us shiver, but the three remaining miles to the shelter warmed us back up and it never actually rained. Encountered a copperhead snake in the middle of the trail once Princess had stepped over it without even noticing. The shelter turned out to be an absolute palace in the woods, rebuilt only last year according to Princess' rather more recent guidebook. It also has plenty of flying insect life, and we were the only ones here, so we decided to pitch our tents inside, that most indulgent of camping experiences. 

Some real toolboxes, who sound like they're from Boston, showed up well after dark, having walked the 25 miles north from Delaware Water Gap, and crashed the shelter--they're still awake talking right now as I type this and one just called his mother for about ten minutes on his cell phone, literally three feet from me. So it won't be as peaceful a night as planned, but we'll give them a little turnabout by waking up at six and being as loud as possible on the way out.

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Day 9: Friday, August 22

In the High Point Shelter (AT SOBO mi 851.3), walked 19.0 miles today

Woke up around eight to find everybody in the hostel still out for the count; eventually bodies started to stir and Princess and I perambulated to the grocery store a half-mile across town for a resupply run. Bagels were consumed from a bagel place soon after, then we moved back to the church to pack up and leave. Since nothing was happening especially quickly, we didn't make it out of town until about 10:45, and that made us the clear leaders among the hostel crowd. Rain seemed to threaten, and it was dark and gray all day, but the radar and weather forecasts suggested it wouldn't be much of an issue, and that ended up being correct.

Local hero Kyle gave Princess and I a ride out of Vernon, although he revealed his ulterior motive for giving us a lift by blurting out right away, "Do you guys smoke? I like to blaze on my way over for work." We told him he'd struck out and picked two of the ten-percenters who *don't* smoke regularly on the AT. Once he'd dropped us off at the trailhead, it was a flat boardwalk next to wetlands for a few miles, then up into the hills, such as they are in New Jersey. There was another wetlands section later, in the early afternoon, but for the most part the trail rambled around through the most nondescript of nondescript Eastern forested tunnels for the day.

Hiked with Princess most of the day, except for the time when a SOBO named Smiley overtook us and I whipped forward to keep up with her for a bit at her extremely brisk pace. Everything about her gear (Gossamer Gear and Altra cap-a-pie) and mannerisms screamed California hiker, so I was not surprised to find she was from the Santa Cruz area and knows the West Coast hiking scene pretty well. She lives with Bobcat, a hiker known to almost everyone who was on the PCT in 2013 as the first and most distinctive SOBO they ran into. She eventually scurried ahead when Princess and I took an afternoon break at the very nice Murray property, a private cabin left open to hikers by the proprietor, a Mr. Jim Murray. From there it was five fairly tame miles to this shelter, where Smiley had decided to fetch up for the night anyway. Only us three, plus whatever bears are probably lurking in the nearby forests waiting to break into my peanut butter jar once I go to sleep, at the shelter site for the night.

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Day 8: Thursday, August 21

Sleeping in the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Vernon, NJ (AT SOBO mi 832.3), walked 14.7 miles today

It rained solidly for hours last night, but I stayed warm and dry and happy and psychologically unscarred in my tent. Got up and felt fairly strong; unfortunately, the trail was dastardly hard for the first few miles. The elevation profile didn't give away much, but it turned out the trail wound up and over countless bare rock humps along a ridge, and with the rock wet from the night before I couldn't afford to hurry lest I slip and destroy myself. After a while that ended, and coming down from the ridge I encountered Clam and Bugout, two SOBOs I'd never met before. Estimable Virginians (as most Virginians are), they and I walked and talked for several miles, until we stopped together at New Jersey's Wayawanda State Park and I ended up leaving before them.

Got to the road to Vernon a few miles later, and just a hop skip and jump from the trailhead was a farm selling incredibly good homemade ice cream at its store. After pausing a half-hour to gorge myself there, Clam and Bugout rolled up and we all scored a ride from the parking lot into town and this church hostel. At the church were several new faces, most of them SOBOs. Another, named Princess, rolled in soon after and five of us ended up going out to dinner at the Vernon Inn, the only establishment in town serving beer. It happened to be Taco Thursday at the Inn, so everyone stuffed his or herself with tacos, margaritas and Yuenglings (not quite Mexican, but it was on special), and then to top things off, a man at the table next to us, apparently a respected figure in the town, picked up the tab for our entire table of hungry hikers. This is the first time such a thing has happened to me on the AT, although it happened several times on the PCT, and then, as now, I don't really understand what I or any other hikers have done to deserve it. We all were all profusely thankful, and then sort of speechless (and, speaking for myself, confused) afterward once he had left.

An incredible thunderstorm, with one of the heaviest cloudbursts I've ever seen, passed over while we were in the Inn--I cracked open the restaurant door to get a look at it, not getting the chance to see many storms back home in Oregon, and water started flying in immediately so I shut it right away--and the walk back to the church was done in the dark on utterly soaked streets. Tomorrow I think nearly everyone has the High Point Shelter, about 20 miles south, as their goal, so I'm expecting more company for the next few days at least, which is great. The AT in this part of the country doesn't have much to reward the solo hiker.

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Day 7: Wednesday, August 20

Tenting a little past NY 17A near Greenwood Lake (AT SOBO mi 817.6), walked 16.6 miles today

An odd, somewhat taxing day with a pleasant ending. Got started a little late with my goal being only 14.3 miles away at the Wildcat Shelter. Knew from the elevation profile and what people had told me that all 14 miles would be ridiculously slow going, all up and down and rocky, and that turned out to be true. Hot, humid and stagnant weather didn't help, nor did being a little tired in the legs and in the brain, nor did being completely alone all day, so I ended up taking things very slowly, breaking about every two miles and staring off into space a lot. Some of the roads had volunteer-stocked water caches at them--no longer just a West Coast thing--because most of the water sources around are either dry or extremely unappealing if they do have water.

Saw and took a video of a huge black rat snake, maybe eight feet long, in the afternoon but that was it for excitement. Made it to the Wildcat Shelter at 5pm exhausted, pretty thirsty and thinking I was done for the day, but the water source there turned out also to be totally dry--more unusual for a shelter, since they're almost always intentionally located by reliable water--so I went on another two miles, thankfully easier, to a road. Wasn't sure how the hitching would go, but got my answer when the very first car I saw missed me, stopped 200 yards later, pulled a 3-point turn in the middle of the highway in front of a blind curve causing about 10 different people to slam on their brakes and honk, and came back to get me. It was local hero Kira, who works at the Renaissance Fair all summer, and she dropped me off in short order at a CVS where I stocked up on water and Gatorade. The CVS happened to be next door to a Subway, so I availed myself of a footlong, Sun Chips and several big cups of fizzy water, plus the chance to charge my phone and catch up with the world. The fourth car to pass me as I thumbed my way back out to the trail picked me up, and I camped soon after getting back into the woods, fat, happy and hydrated again. Tomorrow, another new state: New Jersey! 

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Day 6: Tuesday, August 19

In the Fingerboard Shelter (AT SOBO mi 801.0), walked 15.6 miles today plus about one to get water off-trail

Ate a bagel with schmear from a spot across he street from the hotel, then the owner Doug drove me back to the trail around 9. Was disappointed to find that, at that hour, the Trailside Museum and Zoo next to the bridge, featuring the lowest point on the official AT, was closed, so I walked along the official alternate route in what amounted to a ditch next to the highway then eventually started the climb up Bear Mountain. Chatted with some knowledgeable locals on the way up, made it to the top by 10 and had the run of the place ... Was in the observation tower all by myself and could see, wayyy off as a speck on the horizon, the NYC skyline, which must be invisible on a cloudy or even a generally humid day. Met my dad in the parking lot soon after and we drove to nearby Peekskill for groceries and lunch ... I found a Caribbean place on Yelp that said it was open, and I was excited to try Caribbean food for the first time (spicy stewed goat's head!) but they were closed and we ended up with overwhelmingly sized, underwhelmingly flavored pizza from a cheap Italian joint next door.

After he dropped me back off, the area around the mountaintop was considerably more crowded with people. Not ten minutes after I mentioned to my dad that I hadn't had a conversation in awhile with someone who had no idea whatsoever about the existence of the trail and thru-hiking, I casually mentioned to an orthodox Jewish family who asked me for directions that the path they were on went all the way to Georgia, and we had a rollicking discussion about the AT, and hiking in general, from there. Escaped the Bear Mountain crowds after a mile or so and had things pretty much to myself after that; the trail was, as promised by many people lately, pretty challenging south of Bear Mountain but it also led to easily the most expansive views I've seen so far on this section, and in fact they're probably some of the best between Maryland and Vermont on the whole AT.

Got to my initial goal, a shelter that would've put me at 10 miles for the day, around 5 but there was no one about and the register indicated a SOBO leaving about 10 minutes before I'd gotten there, so I decided to push on to the next shelter five miles further in hopes of finally having a social life on the trail. Got here and got more society than I'd bargained for: the SOBO, who is a Swiss guy named K-9 (although it used to be, and absolutely still ought to be, Hikin' Burger, a bastardization of his real last name of Eichenberger); two med students from New York on a bike/hike tour; and a man named Paddy O, who claims to have provided trail magic to over 2,000 thru-hikers in the past few years. He was not without provisions today either ... Ended up drinking root beer and eating donuts for dinner on account of him. He moved on to camp by himself after an hour of talking at the four of us almost nonstop, and I called it a night myself shortly thereafter. More pokey trail ahead, so probably only another 15 miles tomorrow. 

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Day 5: Monday, August 18

In the Bear Mountain Bridge Motel in Fort Montgomery, NY (AT SOBO mi 785.5), walked 24.7 miles today

Slept surprisingly well for how uneasy I initially was about being utterly alone in the RPH shelter right next to the parkway. Woke up around 6:15, tested the legs out and they were a go. Decided 25 miles to the Bear Mountain Bridge would not be an unreasonable goal, provided I went about it the right way--keeping things consistent, fueling myself properly, not getting caught out too late and being forced to hurry, etc. Ended up pulling it off with plenty of time to spare, getting here at about 6pm.

The morning started off very serene and the trail almost felt wild, since for long stretches I didn't see anyone else and, unusually, couldn't hear any road noise. Took my first substantial break after ten miles by a rural road where there was a potable-water spigot, took the next one eight miles later when the trail intersected a major highway, US 9 by Peekskill, and right at the trailhead was a 24-hour convenience store, the Appalachian Market. Having walked alone all day in my own little zone, I was essentially a helpless old lady inside the store, totally confused by how fast things were happening and how crowded it was. I ended up, when all was said and done, ordering two slices of pizza from an absolute New York goombah, a caricature of a human being, eating quickly at the picnic tables outside the store as all manner of industrial traffic snorted by five yards away on the road, and then heading off to the woods again ASAP. Descended to the Hudson River and the huge Bear Mountain Bridge just before six, did some hotel shopping on the phone, and ended up getting picked up by Doug, the owner of this friendly little joint, in his car and set up with a nice room for myself--complimentary laundry, a few restaurants and c-stores nearby, just what I needed.

Saw very few other hikers today--the southbound traffic seems very spread out, and none happen to be right with me, while there aren't many NOBOs left anymore--but one stands out, the inimitable Mr. Sky Eyes, whom I knew on the PCT last year. Before I even saw him, I heard him screaming (to himself), then when I saw him charging uphill at me in his kilt and screaming some more, apparently because of the Van Halen in his headphones, I knew exactly who it was. I told him what section I was doing and he literally almost fell over laughing: "AHAHAHAHAH thatsliketheshittiestfuckinpartofthewholefuckintrail Ahahahahh!" So it was good to catch up. He and I are both Oregon residents and we agreed that when you tell people in this part of the country you're from Oregon, it's not that far off from saying you're from Mars. He's northbounding and will undoubtedly finish in time, because he is manically fast.

Tomorrow I will see my dad, on his way back to Virginia from a family bereavement in Boston, and then probably take it easy, no more than ten miles or so. Out of New York in three more days.

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Day 4: Sunday, August 17

All alone at the RPH Shelter (AT SOBO mi 760.8), walked 9.0 miles today plus about one to another deli

Woke up a little after six with the Wolfpack (the collective name for guys at the shelter, last name Wolf or Wolff for two of them, who are father and son) but left ahead of them by 7. Had a calm four miles to the first road, down which was--surprise!--another deli. Being New Yorkers, of course they could make a sandwich for me at 8:45am, so I sat outside the store and had that for second breakfast along with a quart of milk, then ordered another for the road. Another hiker was there about the same time as me, a NOBO thru named Cardio Man. What's he like? It's not important. Cardio Man. Actually, he and I chatted for awhile--a Colorado outdoorsmanly jack of all trades who has for some reason decided to do the AT instead of one of the Western trails for his first and, according to him, only long-distance hike. He was about as impressed with this section of the trail as I am (read: not especially). 

Felt so physically beaten down at the end of yesterday and most of this morning that I thought a half-day would do me good, so I rolled into this shelter, the RPH Cabin, around 12:30, took a nap, then stuck around the rest of the day. It's not a typical shelter; it appears to be a converted cinder-block outbuilding from possibly an old farm or estate, and it's very close to a road and has a grassy lawn and a shady picnicky ramada around the back. I knew already that you could order delivery pizza from it (which I did not), and I assumed it would be chock full o' hikers come evening time. Instead, the last people I saw here passed through around 3:30 and it's been oddly deserted since. Passed most of the afternoon reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which I picked up in Kent at the book sale. It's a bit of an odd one to be reading on the trail, since it's about gay Oxford boys in 1920s England. Tomorrow with the right start time and rejuvenated legs I may be able to make it to a much-needed hotel stay around Bear Mountain in 20+ miles.

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Day 2: Friday, August 15

Tenting by the Ten Mile River Shelter (AT SOBO mi 731.3), walked 15.7 miles today plus at least two more on the road to, from and around Kent

The guy with the dog also happened to snore like a jake-braking semi truck all night long, to the point where I had a dream that Stan Mordensky (a friend who thru-hiked the AT last year) was in the shelter in between the snoring guy and me and I was telling Stan to elbow him as hard as possible in the ribs. Then as soon as I sat up in the morning, his dog Flicka of course started growling at me and baring her teeth. Then he set part of the shelter floor on fire lighting up his stove for breakfast. This is a man who probably should not be allowed to use shelters, but I doubt he can be stopped now. I tried to break camp quickly and forget about how annoyed I was with him, succeeding on both parts. I quickly had to divert my frustration toward the trail itself, which took me on an absolute bitch mother of a climb up to a point called the St. John's Ledges; it was an almost-vertical, hand-over-hand scramble over jumbles of boulders at some points, the type of thing that just doesn't happen on a "trail" not maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club (the AMC has a Connecticut branch that maintains this state's section of the trail and their influence shows).

The day was, thankfully, cool and a little cloudy, meaning I felt great once I'd worked up a sweat and it chilled me down afterward. After the initial nastiness it was a few miles of descent to the road that goes to Kent, a town usually accompanied by a groan and/or an expletive from hikers, because it is a touch precious and hikers often seem to feel they're given a colder shoulder there than most other towns. I saw no reason to complain, though. I got everything I needed taken care of promptly--decent pizza at a decent price, my phone charged, Instagrams uploaded, full-fat Skippy procured (I'd made an amateur's mistake two days before and gotten reduced-fat peanut butter, which is inedible), a damn good mocha consumed, my water bottles filled, and Aqua Mira purchased from "Backcountry Outfitters." I also picked up a used book--Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh--for a buck and had some great interactions with other hikers--these were unexpected bonuses. All my business with the townspeople was conducted with a smile rather than a scowl, and everyone went on their merry way at the end of it, doubtless humming Kumbaya to themselves.

I left around 3pm to take care of the next nine miles, which started out pretty rolly (in a bad way; it doesn't help that my legs are sore from the first day) but ended with a gentle stroll along the Ten Mile River and to this shelter. One thing I really enjoy about the AT compared to the PCT is the rich variation in the human spectrum that you encounter among the hikers; the people of the PCT, as much as I like them, seem *very* homogenous and single-minded in their goals and approach to hiking by comparison. There are people that I think are idiots, like the guy in the shelter last night, or the guy in the shelter tonight who made it an easy decision for me to tent, or the guy in the Mt. Algo Shelter in the afternoon who was terrorizing everyone else with his incessant talking and boasted about having gotten heat stroke three times in Virginia this year and then stuck to his claim when I asked if he was sure he didn't mean heat exhaustion. But there are also a lot of brilliant, happy and expressive people ... Some NOBOs I had just met in Kent (who were smoking joints on a park bench) sang me a really awesome song they had written about the AT, which I videoed but promised not to publish until the singer could do it first. There are ridiculously interesting and varied entries in all the shelter register books, too many to remember. People on the AT in general seem to come from vastly different walks of life and have vastly different ideas about why it's good to be out here. I don't think I'm denying the PCT a fair shake in saying all this, because I noticed it right away when I was out there, the relative homogeneity of that crowd.

Met my first SOBO thru-hikers, Walkie and Talkie, at the shelter tonight along with several others. Most of us are camped to escape the prattle of Grandpa George, a section-hiker in the shelter. It's a cool clear night; tenting with no rain fly. Tomorrow, maybe 20 less taxing-looking miles to the Morgan Stewart Shelter in NY (crossed into NY for ten minutes today, then jumped back into CT for the night).

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Day 3: Saturday, August 16

In the Morgan Stewart Shelter (AT SOBO mi 751.8), walked 20.5 miles today, plus at least one to/from Tony's Deli

Woke up very early by AT standards, at 6:15, and got out of camp at about the same time as Walkie and Talkie, with whom I walkied and talkied for about the first ten miles. They were very good companions, very appropriately named (the woman, Talkie, made about 95% of the conversation) but we split up when we got to NY Highway 22 and the Appalachian Trail Metro North train station, where they were due to meet some people for a day off. Took it upon myself to walk half a mile down the road to Tony's Deli, where I resisted the urge to ask for Tony's bologna and instead ate a massive pastrami melt and two sodas and an ice cream bar for only about ten bucks. Overfull, I staggered back down the highway and sat at the Native Landscapes Garden Center, a business that sits right where the trail meets the road and is incredibly friendly to hikers. I got a full phone charge and free wifi and chatted with a very nice woman who worked there about the evils of invasive species, a favorite topic of mine since I was paid to make a minuscule dent in their populations for two summers in Minnesota, years ago.

Returned to the trail having digested enough to make hiking possible. Went at it a little too hard, though, wasting myself and my already tired legs going uphill for a few miles until I had to take a long, solitary break at a shelter and tell myself to be cool, honey bunny, and that I still had plenty of time to make my goal for the day even if I took things slowly. The next few miles after that were apparently part of a very popular day hike, and an Indian-American family that I talked to ended up foisting three bananas and two nectarines on me despite my smiling protests. I had to sit down and eat those, not that it was a problem. After 5pm, working out my last 6 miles or so, I didn't see a single person and my mood started to turn a little. The morning and the beginning of the afternoon had been great, both with the trail (several grassy fields, albeit some infested with purple loosestrife) and the people, but suddenly I was alone, with energy flagging, and stuck on the Bad AT. The Bad AT is usually a maze through some impenetrable unattractive forest, often muddy and or swampy, with lots of steep short rocky climbs and descents, anything from 50 to a few hundred feet of elevation change ... I got all of that for four of the last five miles, and the landmark I was looking for, a dirt road that meant I was exactly a mile from the shelter, took forever to arrive and I started to think I was just going to wander around in circles in the featureless woods until darkness fell. Thankfully the road came and the final mile up to the shelter was pleasant, on a nice high (1300 feet above sea level!) ridge with room to see out over the fresh green breast of the New World, as Fitzgerald would have it. The shelter has three SOBO thru-hikers, Moses, Sinatra and Papa Wolf, staying here and no one else, so I ate dinner with them and then turned in. More on them tomorrow, since I will probably hike with them for a bit.

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Day 1: Thursday, August 14

In the Stewart Hollow Brook Shelter (AT SOBO mi 715.6), walked 19.1 miles today, plus maybe 1.5 extra before and during

At 6pm yesterday, Scott and the Bry-man dropped me off in bustling downtown Falls Village, CT, whereupon I called up my old Carleton friend Rebecca, aka RJP. People who have been to Falls Village will recognize the improbability of knowing someone who actually lives there, but RJP does actually live there now (she grew up there too), and only about a half-mile from the AT. After a very fried dinner in nearby Canaan and a trip to the grocery store, I decided it was too late to start hiking, and there were still sprinkles of rain in the air, so I took her up on her offer to crash at the RJP ancestral home for the night and start walking in the morning. Whether this counts as a zero day is up for debate. Regardless, it was a pleasure catching up and being their guest, and I woke up ready to make tracks.

Had a standoff with a grumpy dog while taking back neighborhood roads down to the trail in the morning, then finally got on and was so excited to be hiking again that I walked the first nine miles nonstop. This despite the fact that it was steep, rocky, rooty, damp, shady ... all the usual New England AT traits that just aren't an issue anywhere on the PCT. Took a first break at a shelter (a shelter!) with one of the cleanest privies in history, where a very stoned guy named Deppy asked me questions in great detail about an upcoming section of trail that I had already told him I hadn't seen since one day over three years ago. He was one of the only non-thru-hikers I met today; might have encountered 20 NOBOs by the end of it. Some had hopes of finishing (as they should: they're not in bad position to make Katahdin by October 15), some had given up already. I only made real conversation with about five of them.

Took a big ass siesta in the middle of the afternoon when I realized that I was on pace to make my target by about 4pm, and that was just a little too fast, not only because it leaves me with too much time at the shelter, but because I'm not in the kind of shape to be knocking out 19 AT miles in 7.5 hours, no matter how much I may want to. The post-siesta hike took me up some horrendously steep short climbs and on a roadwalk around a flooded stream crossing. Got here about 7pm and chatted with Grubnugget, a NOBO thru-hiker, for a bit. There's a really neurotic dog named Flicka in this shelter, who seems to think it's her house, and her owner, a section hiker, has had to yell at her and physically restrain her many times already. I'm not sure what will happen if either Mr. Grubnugget or I have to get up to pee in the night, or maybe Flicka will just forget about us entirely after a couple of hours and I'll wake up to her growling in my face at 2am. Can't say I missed dogs on the PCT last summer. There are a lot of other differences too that I kept thinking about but to list them all would belabor the point; this is a very different trail experience, but it's still pretty nice and I'm very happy to be out here. Tomorrow, maybe brunch in Kent and then I'll be in New York in the afternoon.

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Road trippin' with my two favorite allies

On Thursday I packed up and hit the road with two jamokes from Long Island, Scott and Bryan "the Bry-man" on a journey across the country, which will, hopefully, end at Falls Village, CT where I will commence hiking. Being a Social Media-Fluent Young Person, I have an Instagram feed, @scrubhiker, wherein I post artful square images from the journey. I'm also going to put hiking pictures up there when the time comes. Follow along (Instagram.com/scrubhiker). Walking, and trail-journaling, starts in the middle of next week. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of our savior among the cosmos in Salt Lake City.