Date: 2016-05-31
From: Delaware Water Gap

To: Right here
Miles today: 28.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Box Turtle here,Taking a zero day in Sussex, NJ with El Loco/Mr. Box Turtle, who has driven across the state of PA for a visit before I hike too far away to drive to from Pittsburgh. I won't see him again until the hike's end, when he joins me for some hut-to-hut hiking in the White Mountains of NH, I hike back into (and out from) where I fell last summer, and we drive home together to Pittsburgh--in late July. I'll be wearing a giant crown saying "I am an awesome AT 2000-Miler"! Just kidding.In the meantime,the hike goes well. Just over 200 miles hiked so far, and the completion of PA two days ago when I gleefully hiked out of Delaware Water Gap. That is a very beautiful natural site (think gigantic landscape paintings of the Hudson River School), and a surprisingly interesting tiny town,with good live jazz in an atmospheric bar--meaning, fading old Pocono-area resort town vibe, with some weekend visitors from Manhattan--an outfitter selling hiking equipment,and a good local bakery,with a BBQ joint outside! I stayed two nights in a typical hiker hostel: run by a local church, with a bunkroom of eight "beds"--wooden platforms with sleeping bag-sized strips of carpet on them--a common room with several sofas (each of which served as additional beds at night), many electrical outlets for everyone to recharge their phones, a log book in which to sign in, a slot in which to put monetary donations (Seeker and I each paid 10$/night),a "hiker bax" in which to put or take things you don't need or want. a cabinet full of towels and a shared single shower and toilet for all of us. There were also multiple tents in the yard behind the church, and a small wooden shelter with additional campers there--so maybe twenty of us altogether, coming and going throughout the day, washing socks in buckets outside, eating watermelon at the outdoor picnic table, and waiting for shuttle rides to Walmart to re-supply trail food. (Box Turtle is a little reserved, and tends to walk around the town or read a book rather than hang out with the hikers, though she comes out of her shell periodically.) But all dark and quiet by about 8pm, snoring or simply lying awake on our little pallets while resting our bodies. Seeker and I agreed to wake up at 5:00am to get on the trail by 6am, due to the heat. I fairly skipped across the river and up the NJ side of the mountain at the prospect of soon leaving the legendary "rocks of PA." In truth, these rocks--small, pointy, and sometimes forming the entirety of the "trail surface"--continue a ways into NJ,but I now am almost surely done with them. I didn't mind them as much as some, but I'm unusual in hiking in heavy, high leather hiking boots (think Alpine trekker)which are unbelievably hot but offer considerable foot-protection, and I'm also pretty defensive about the charms of Pennsylvania.So far, I calculate a 14.2 mile average hiking day, and my third day off today--one each week. There are fewer hikers on this portion of the AT right now, since the "bubble' of thru-hikers who began in Georgia hasn't yet gotten this far yet. Those of us who are here have started farther north ( and might then "flip" to the southern half after reaching Maine, or are just hiking a section of the trail). We're an older bunch, mostly. Some of my favorites (I give their trail names, since I mostly don't know their actual ones): Sin Nombre, a mechanical engineer from Lewistown, PA (interesting, as my grandfather was a mechanical engineer from Lewistown!), about 30; Frenchie, a Zamboni driver from Quebec, also about 30; Spacious, a business consultant from Berlin, in her 40s; Spotty, a retired bus-driver from a small town in Austria, hiking with his Siberian Husky, Nanook; Deacon,a deacon from Port Clinton, Ohio; and Seeker, retired from a career at the CDC in Atlanta and my most regular hiking companion so far. I don't think our trail names are the most imaginative, but you be the judge.The AT always manages to challenge, and in this stretch rocks have been the difficulty more than hard climbs or long distances between stops. You must concentrate on your footing with almost every step, also keeping an eye out for snakes. (I've seen one Copperhead; missed the many rattlesnakes others have seen.) I'm looking forward to the different character of a trail that snakes between heavily-populated areas and offers frequent opportunities to duck into town. (The ultimate extension of this will be June 11, when I take the train from its seasonal stop along the AT into Manhattan, to spend a couple of nights with friends Jo and Dennis.) Northern NJ is, however, the opposite of the state's suburban stereotype. See the picture of the quiet swamp I passed yesterday morning about 7am. There were two beaver lodges in the pond, a sizable dam, and multiple species of frogs and birds calling. Up on the ridge, there are expansive views into more rural NJ, and, to the northwest, PA and, soon, southern NY. The trail is really no less beautiful for being less isolated. That might sound weird, but perhaps the existence of the natural beauty, so circumscribed by the development around it, makes it especially delightful in its contrast. Hmmm.I loved learning my PA poems: two short ones, "Urban Birding" by Mark Possanza and "The Green Drake Hatch" by Anna Catone. Alas, so far NJ is without a poet. I am marching on towards NY, where Walt Whitman awaits!