Date: 2005-07-29
From: Wildcat shelter

To: Arden Valley Road
Miles today: 15.5
Weather: light rain

Today was a grueling day. I am not in love with NY anymore. Up and down, up and down, boulders and rocks all day long. I think that NY is trying to hurt me, plus NY does not seem to want us to have water. Water sources are few and far between.    This morning when my alarm went off at 5:00 AM I could not believe that it was time to get up. I closed my eyes and thought about just ignoring the alarm, but I knew how important it was for us to get to the post office by 11:30 AM so we would not get held up in Arden.   I woke Piker up and we slowly started to get packed up. I was surprised at how quickly we were moving on such little sleep. For breakfast we ate muffins from Heaven Hill Farm. Quick breakfast, woke up Crazy Horse and we were out. We stopped to get water at the spring and were on the trail at 5:50 AM. Definitely one of our earliest starts since we have been out here. The air was cool and we started out cruising. The first five miles melted away and then we started to feel it a bit. Today we saw what NY is going to be like. Up and down over rocks and boulders with little flat terrain in between. It was tough. I began feeling sluggish climbing Buchanan Mtn. We were two thru-hiking zombies. We didn't drink that much water because we were not sure when the next source would be. I think that yesterday's hike and little sleep were starting to take a toll on us. Nonetheless we kept truckin' along and made it to NY17 at 10:10. We took a short break before hiking the .7 miles to the post office. Arden is a tiny community. The post office looks like a shack and about five houses. We walked up to the PO @ exactly 10:30. Perfect timing. Both of our drops were there, food drop and a package from Mama Mileage containing our camera (yay!), freeze dried dinners (yum) and my dog's bandana. Mission complete. We were still feeling completely drained and decided to try to hitch back to the trail. It was not happening. We tried, in the hot sun, for about ten minutes and then gave up. We walked up back the .7 miles and then sat and sorted out our food. At about noon we took off to tackle the 4.4 miles to the shelter. We found a waer cache which rejuvenated us for a while. It was very slow going. On the climbs we were barely moving. The push into town had really taken it out of us. On the climb to Island Pond Mtm. we went through "The Lemon Squeezer". It was an extremely narrow rock corridor. You had to cozy up to one side of the wall and slowly walk through. I was surprised I made it because I have a wide pack. It was not a comfortable minute of hiking going through the Squeezer!! Slowly but surely we made it to the shelter. We wanted to see what the register said about water but there wasn't one. The shelter was old nd dirty and gave me a weird vibe. We decided to push on to the lake for water. We were lucky and it was a relatively easy 1.1 mile push. When we got there we were psyched because there was a spigot, rest rooms, and soda machines. We just didn't have the energy to go swimming which, of course, I regret now. All we wanted to do was get water, find a campspot and lay down for the night. We stockpiled water and started walking away from Lake Tiorati Circle when a nice gentlemen offered us a ride to the trail. Out first break of the day. We were so happy that we did not have to walk the .3 uphill with all that water. What a nice New Yorker! We hiked down the trail a bit and ound a camp spot. I set up the tent while Piker made dinner. We were famished and wound up eating both freeze dried meals my mom sent. They were awesome, we felt like we were at a restaurant. Now we are in the tent 8:00 PM nice and early. Tomorrow we will meet Mama and Papa Piker at Beat Mountain, NY. We are so lucky! It is wonderful to have family come and see us out here. Two long intense days. I am sure we will sleep well tonight!   Ms. Mileage