Tag: at2024

We woke up in Unionville and realized it was the worst night of our lives. Between the noise of the traffic, the lights, and the mosquitoes, it was a very unrestful night. Traffic started to die out about 10:30 PM, but even so, the lights of the city kept us awake and restless. 

In the morning, we got up about 6:30 and started packing up. It was a very lazy morning and all of us were packed up around 8:30. Our shuttle wasn’t due to arrive until 10 o’clock, and so we sat in front of the general store, charging our devices and enjoying the gloriously cool weather and beautiful skies. We sat across from a quaint little house that had some kind of, badger or groundhog living under it. We don’t know whether the owners know that that animal is there, but the cat does as evidenced by his peeking out of the window at the same time that the groundhog was perusing the front beds.

Jaime, our Shuttle Driver was an interesting character. Kind of bedraggled in an old Ram 2500 work truck with doors that didn’t work very well. He was essentially a nice guy, and very knowledgeable about the area because he’s lived here his entire life. In fact, he said that his family went back to the 1700s in this area. He said he was a member of the historical committee. He shared some of the history of the area with us.

Jaime first took us to the Glenwood post office to pick up supplies for the rest of the hike. The postmaster there was very helpful. We were able to get one box returned to our home in Texas, and retrieve our other box, unload and regroup our food, and then mail a few items back. One of the items I sent back was a very heavy climbing rope that I had ordered to substitute as a bear rope, but it’s just way too heavy for this kind of use, and there are bear boxes along the trail anyway.

The hike to the shelter was nice, unremarkable, short and soft. We were put in fairly far down the line and so only had a short day today. We’ve been at the shelter now for four or five hours, napping, talking, and resting, waiting for our movie in Warick tomorrow. The plan is to pick up the shuttle in the morning at the Warwick Turnpike and drive into Warick to see the movie. It’s Tootles and my anniversary tomorrow

By the way, Forest Pixie and Mama Bear decided to change their trail names to Finknottle and Tootles. Just a note.

Today’s mileage: 2.0

Total trail miles: 68.4

We got out relatively early at High Point shelter by 7:30. It was an 8 mile day, and some of the lowest, softest, easiest trail of the entire trip – really a beautiful stroll – mostly down with a few 200 ups.

we hiked into Unionville, New York,  0.3 off the trail and immediately liked the town. There was a city park that you could camp in for free. The park had a little gazebo, swings, benches, a basketball court, and lots of low-cut sweet grass. We took a long nap in the .afternoon, and then went over to Annabella’s pizza and Italian restaurant. I should put restaurant in quotes – It was really a sub-sandwich place with pizza, pretty good. We ate our lunch, hung out in the gazebo at the park , watched some of the Republican national convention had some ice cream at Main Street scoops and enjoyed the beautiful cool evening, charging our phones on the porch of the general store. We slept in the gazebo, and it was not very comfortable. Lots of sounds and lights from the cars coming by, and none of us slept really well. 

Today’s mileage: 7.4

Total trail miles: 51.7

We had already planned a shuttle from the hotel to the High Point, Monument, and so we took our time in the morning, ate breakfast. A little early took another two hour nap, and then started packing her stuff to leave about 1130. We had called the Shuttle Driver named Johnny, who was absolutely Stupendous. She picked us up and started taking us up to the monument.

Johnny works at the High Point State Park, so she knows the area very well. She took us up to the monument which we got to see along with all the surrounding terrain because High Point is the High Point of New Jersey at 1802 feet., Not including the monument.

We were going to hike gone to the Shelter, but Johnny suggested that we spend the afternoon at “the beach” and then walk up to the shelter, which was only a short short height from monument park. This we did, and dipped our toes in Lake Marcia. The thing began to rain, so we stayed in the lodge just at the top of the hill of the lake for about 45 minutes, then packed up and headed to the shelter.

High Point shelter is magnificent with a fast running stream around the outer perimeter. The sheltere itself is relatively new, medium size, they’re about 10 hikers here at least at this point. I’m in my hammock and the girls are in their tent and the rain is going. There’s an idiot who’s trying to build  a fir in a rain storm even though there’s a sign that says no ground fires. Basically it’s just a bunch of smoke and it’s kind of irritating me.

In summary, today was a very light day on the trail, but we yellow blazed a lot of miles to catch up. Tomorrow’s medium day at 8 miles. We’ll see how it goes.

Today’s mileage:  0.6

Total Trail miles:  44.4

Today was a rough day for me. In the morning we started our hike. I could tell that my blood pressure was low and it began to really weigh on me to the point where I didn’t know that I could continue after several miles. The hike from Brink down to Culver Gap was unremarkable, but the low blood pressure was really giving me problems. Mama Bear and Forest Pixie had a very good day, but I told him toward the end of the afternoon that I needed to pull off and rest. We got a ride from Snores,, his real name is Jack, who took us to the Mountain House Twvern where we ate lunch. The girls had hamburgers which they said were extremely good. I had a margarita pizza with fresh basil and mozzarella and the special house tomato sauce, which is very good. 

We then tried several motels nearby Culver’s gap and they were all full, so we ended up going into Newton and getting a hotel. We got there about 2 o’clock and immediately took a nap for about four hours before we got up and then went to eat. It was glorious.

After the extended rest, we walked over to Applebee’s and got a good dinner of appetizers. I felt much better.

Today’s mileage: 4.2

Total trail miles:  28.4

We woke up at the Mohican Outdoor Center and got a shuttle to the blue Mountain Lake Road, which intersects the A-T about 7 miles in Since we were short yesterday, we thought the better part of valor would be to take a short day today.

The day was hot and rocky with lots of ridge running over balds with little shade. The temperature has been in the upper 80s maybe 90. Allyson was pretty wiped out today.

The shelter is a good one, although the water is a little bit low. We ran into bird nerd again today, and she is staying here at the shelter with us.

One disturbing thing: there was a hiker dressed all in black that we ran into earlier today, and Bird Nerd said that he was talking to some of the female hikers harassing them, and at one point was chased by some male hikers away from the scene. He’s staying in the shelter tonight. He seems a little off, but other than that OK. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.

Today’s mileage: 7.5

Total Trail Miles: 24.9

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

Here I sit in the PABT (Port Authority Bus Terminal) waiting for the bus to pull out and take us to Stroudsburg, PA for the start of our journey. Allyson and MC are with me this year, at least for most of it. Our itinerary takes us from the Delaware River to the Hudson. I feel a little like George Washington.

The family is getting off at Warwick, PA so I’ll have a few days by myself to contemplate my sins. Which is a good thing because I’m expecting a letter from the Diaconate program any day, and I may not be in the program any longer. Failure feeds humility.

Anyway, we step off the morning. I hope I remembered my toothbrush.