Today, as all first days are, was a hard day. We were ambitious on our mileage, and only made it about 80% of the way. Luckily, at the end of that 80% was the Mohican outdoor center. We’re staying in a lodge with bunks, a kitchen, showers, and AC. Mattie Claire would call it glamping.
They say that Pennsylvania is where boots go to die, but what they don’t tell you is that that truth spills over into New Jersey. Very rocky today.
Crossing the Delaware river was nice. Although it’s a busy interstate, there’s a nice hikers’ walkway across the mile along bridge. The ascent today was much milder than I expected. The trail was not very rocky, and so gradual that the ascent was very pleasant. Once upon the ridge, things changed. Lots of rocks.
We had several encounters of note. About 1030, we came across a Ridge runner named Kiosk. She was a wealth of information about the trailer ahead and gave us some good information, including that we were about to get dumped on with rain. It gave us enough time to put on our rain gear and indeed it rained quite heavily for about 45 minutes. The weather report had it clear today, so this was about par.
The highlight of the day was hiking by Sunfish Pond, a small glacial lake. Beautiful, but very rocky around the shoreline, which is where the trail goes
There were lots of hikers on the trail today, including a Boy Scout troop, who was very boisterous and pointed out to us that it was raining. We also met a hiker named Bird Nerd. You can guess what she was interested in.
The last half of the day was strenuous, in hot, humid sun on the ridges, with rocky but short climbs all the way down to the Mohican Outdoor Center.
Today’s mileage: 12.2
Overall trail mileage: 10.9