Date: 2013-07-26
From: New Jersey

To: New York
Miles today: 49.9
Weather: light rain

New JerseyUpon leaving Pennsylvania, I was so stoked I could have been entering the first four levels of hell and still been happy. I crossed into New Jersey from the Delaware Water Gap bridge, halfway across the bridge about fifty feet above the Delaware River, I left the Keystone State in my proverbial rear view mirror. Thank The Lord, I have fond memories of you Pennsylvania as a child. My most recent trip...well read my last post, also described as Orion's Inferno. I half expected a sun tanning booth at the border, possibly a gym, oily haired dudes walking around in tank tops and women three or four shades of orange.The AT runs along the Northwest border turns at the Northern corner of the state at High Point and heads east along the New York border. Somehow this small slice of New Jersey has held on to a rural and country feel.   I walked through the state with Davy Crockett the majority of the time, as well as leap frogged K2, Blackhawk, Pathfinder, Hipsy Gyspy, Oak, Blood Orange, Wooden Spoon, Hobo, Hat Trick, and Steady Eddy. The trail in the state follows along four different state parks. One day we ventured down to Stokes State Park for a free shower and later hid out from a rain storm under Sunrise Pavillon...no camping allowed...we did not sleep there like two homeless people...the temperature dropped in the night and the wind blew through the open sides of our hobo shelter. We woke early the next morning to high tail it down the trail. Don't judge it was really wet and dark.The next day we hiked into Unionville, NY to the post office for my drop box. The town allows hikers to sleep in the park for one night free of charge, as we walked into the park there were about ten teenagers hanging out in the midst of an argument, which quickly escalated to a fist fight between two black guys an emo kid and his sister, she was defending her little brother. I set my tent up throughout this loud altercation and reflected on how my life was a crazy existence. Later the cops showed up and the two black guys ran past our tents and jumped the fence into the woods. There were about ten hikers in the park, I commented, "what a life!" Hipsy Gypsy said were not much better and I said no, "I'm talking about us!"The next day we walked through the Pochuck Swamp along about a mile of well constructed wooden platforms, surrounded by cat tails and tail marsh grasses. The sun light at that time of day was fantastic and spread a beautiful glow everywhere as we clunked along on wooden planks. We made it to Vernon, NJ hitched a ride into Warwick, NY and pitched our tents at Warwick Drive Inn Theatre. For $10 we had a place to camp, caught a double feature and the place provided us with radios to listen to the movies. Not sure if watching The Conjuring a movie about a haunting in Massachusetts was the greatest idea, as I will have to sleep in that state for a couple nights but, oh well, my other choices were either Turbo or Despicable Me 2. Inexplicably the temperature dropped to the low 50s and the following day was chilly all day. It felt great to me, my fellow hikers were suffering though and I thought to myself is this a precursor to New Hampshire and Maine its getting cold already and it's not even August. Davy and I ran back into Blackhawk, K2 and Pathfinder climbing out of Vernon and later camped with them at the NY/NJ border. New Jersey was quick and eventful, long walks through farm land, rolling hills, swampy areas and pretty ridge lines. We saw one black bear, got dive-bombed by a sharp shin hawk while she shrieked at us in her alarm call, we must have been too close to her nest.The rocks are just as bad all the way to High Point where the trail turns east and it must somehow leave that geological ridge line of rock heaven. All in all I liked New Jersey, didn't get much of a tan tough!