Date: 2006-10-08
From: N. High Pt Shelter, NJ

To: Rattlesnake Mt, NJ
Miles today: 22.5

I didn't sleep too well at all last night. It was a nice evening and even got down into the upper 30's by morning (perfect for me), but there was a deer not too far off and he just layed there and blew all night.I saw a bow hunter just before I set up my tent and I'm wondering whether he might have stuck an arrow into the deer that didn't kill it. Every 30 seconds or so all night long the bugger made his blowing noise and he never moved. I've never heard a deer do that before.I opened my box of Entenmann's chocolate covered donuts before dawn and ate half of them and 10 chocolate covered expresso beans....maybe 12 chocolate covered expresso beans....I lost count. :-)))I heard Yolanda complain that it wasn't light out yet...guess she didn't get a good night's sleep either.I kept packing up and she complained, but I heard her start packing her stuff up too. :-)))We were both packed and walking by 7am.It was a great morning for a walk. The sky was blue, the sun was coming up over the mountains and there was a lite breeze.We passed by the side trail to High Point Shelter without stopping and kept climbing until we got up to the summit and climbed up on the tower.It was nice up there, but we had a ways to walk today, so we headed on.It was very rocky all day. My heel started out feeling real good, but before long, the rocks had it hurting again.We descended to the High Point Visitor's Center and took a break. We got water and I sent in a journal entry from the payphone.The Visitor's Center wasn't open yet, so we walked on.We walked by the side trail to Rutherford Shelter without stopping, then we did stop at Mashipacong Shelter.I signed the register and used a couple smiley face stickers and we talked to a couple over night hikers.They offered us some of their food, but we were heading for Culver's Gap and a sports bar. :-)))Yolanda predicted that we would see lots of day hikers today and she was right. It was just too beautiful a day not to be outside.We climbed up to Sunrise Mountain next. There were a few people trying to spot some hawks and a small group that took up some fried chicken. Yolanda said I could distract them and she would steal their fried chicken and run. She said they would never catch her because they all looked like they had already eaten too much fried chicken. :-)))I talked her out of her larceny idea and we walked on. :-)))We descended that mountain and passed by the side trail to Gren Anderson Shelter without stopping.Next was a climb up to Culver Fire Tower. I got there just ahead of Yolanda and I kept walking. She stopped to talk to some day hikers with a beautiful 6 month old German shepard who was being raised by that family for a year, then going into a seeing eye program. Yolanda caught up before too long and we walked together down to Culver's Gap where we headed right to Sunset Grill.I was hungry and ordered some chili, a 3/4 lb cheese burger with fries, then ordered a dozen buffalo wings....burp. :-)))Yolanda had a couple beers to celebrate going under 200 miles left of her thru hike...I drank Coke because I still have a little over 600 miles left.We talked about the next section of Trail to Delaware Water Gap, Pa and decided to get a motel tonight and get cleaned up.Yolanda called, but couldn't understand the owner and eventually gave up.We walked down to the bait store and got a couple sodas to pack out and filled our water bottles. We also found out that there isn't any hunting allowed in NJ on Sunday. Guess that's why we didn't see any bow hunters today.We walked out of Culver's Gap and climbed the next mountain.We walked by the side trail to Brinks Road Shelter without stopping. That's the shelter I was tenting at in '02 when I had a bear come up to my tent twice in one night, sniffing around.We climbed Rattlesnake Mountain and since the sun was just setting, we decided to go ahead and set up our tents on the summit tonight.It's kind of nice for a change to sleep out in the open. I may not think so in the morning when I packed up a dew soaked tent. :-)))I'm still at 117 leaves, so I guess I'm not as good at this game as I thought I was yesterday. Ha!!!