Date: 2003-07-29
From: Pochuck Mountain Shelter

To: Prospect Rock Mountain Top (1433')
Miles today: 16.2

HOLY WAKE-UP CALL!Moo & 42 are lying in our tent this very minute -- it's 5:46am. Approx 7 minutes ago, Moo, sleeping on the left side of the tent, woke up & looked out the mesh netting on his side of the tent -- and saw a BIG BEAR (approx 200-250 lbs) lying down like the family pooch no more than 2 feet away from the foot end of our tent, nestled up against a big tree. Moo quietly woke 42, who was sleeping on her side, facing out the other side of the tent. Moo said, "Don't be alarmed, but turn slowly to your left & look @ the bear outside our tent." 42, an experienced bear observer @ this point on our journey, turned slowly. The bear, hearing us moving around in the tent, got up on all 4s, approached our tent, & reached out w/ its right, front paw & touched the tent. At this point, we both started making noise, saying loudly things like, "Time to move away from the tent, Mr. Bear" & "Go away bear, we're trying to sleep." The bear then stretched out like a cat on a scratching post, walking his front legs up the big tree that was slightly to the left of the foot of our tent -- he looked even longer that way. At this point, 42 unzipped her side of the tent, picked up her trekking poles, & banged them together several times. Mr. Bear got the message and ambled off all of about 15 or 20 feet away, at which point, he plopped down as if waiting for breakfast.By now, we'd woken the 3 fellow thru-hikers (Spitz, Applejack & Stocliff) sleeping in the shelter about 10 feet away & we were all just checking out the bear. Within a few minutes, the bear got up & wandered out of sight.About 5 minutes later, the bear was back -- this time off to the right of our tent, about 25 feet away. At this point, Stocliff was walking back from the privy, between us & the bear. We let him know the bear was back, & he observed the bear walk over to the privy, go into the privy by going under the half-walls, then open the privy door to come out -- we shit you not! We're thinking our neighborhod bear is the same one that was banging around the bear/food box last night.And now for the rest of what proved to be a great day:Moo was totally wired from the bear incident and wrote in our journal right away; 42 went back to sleep -- she wasn't going to let something like a little bear ruin her sleep. We got back on the trail around 9am. After a few miles, we came to the part of the trail in Sussex County, NJ that's a boardwalk -- it's really great. For about a mile or so, we walked on the boardwalk thru a swampy area, by a pond filled with turtles and frogs, then over a really neat suspension bridge. We could see a ski slope in the distance -- pretty neat b/c it was probably Vernon Valley or Great Gorge, where we skied on high school trips. Then the boardwalk ended and we walked thru some fields towards the mountains. We could see some rocks jutting out between the trees near the top, and we saw some hikers up there -- Moo started mooing at them, and they yelled back. We wondered who it was. Then on our climb up the mountain -- a beautiful rock scramble of a climb -- we ran into some day hikers who told us it was Bingo & Trucker. By the time we got up there, though, they had left. We were sorry we missed them, but the view -- Pinwheel's Vista -- was incredible! We had lunch, darned some socks, and even napped a bit up there in the sun. Later in the day we ran into some northbound thru-hikers walking south, Dirty Frank and Night Owl, and we asked where they were going. We must have sounded surprised or something, b/c one of them said, "Don't tell me we're going south!" Turns out that they had gotten off the trail and when they got back on, not only were they heading in the wrong direction, but they got on south of where they had gotten of, so they were walking over trail they had already hiked! They were not happy about it, to say the least.Toward the end of the day we hit Bearfort Mtn., where the NJ/NY border is located. We cooked dinner on the rocks up there, and Chapeau and Mini-Moo joined us for our border-crossing photos. Then Thirsty came along and we all started looking for camping spots.About a mile later we arrived at Prospect Rock, a rocky area with an incredible view of Greenwood Lake below. We were able to find a couple of grassy areas for our tents and decided it was too beautiful to pass up. Great sunset, and the night was star-filled. We slept without the fly on so we could enjoy the starry night.