Date: 2010-07-18
From: Island Pond

To: West Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.1
Weather: few clouds

Less than 800 miles to go! Today was definitely not nearly as hard as yesterday. After a wonderful morning, I hiked on about 4 miles through the beautiful Harriman State Park to Arden Rd. About .3 mile off, there's a park with water, restrooms, public swimming beach, and vending machines. I hung out there for about 2 hours. I swam, had lunch, relaxed, had a nice, long chat with my friend Krystal (way overdue!), and had a delicious ice cream bar before I hiked off. It was a wonderful break! The rest of the day seemed to pass pretty quickly.   I was still on the fence about whether to hike .6 miles to the shelter here or camp somewhere past there until right at the turnoff. Obviously, I decided to go for it. I am SO glad I did!!! The big appeal of this shelter is that it has a great view of New York City. I was told somewhere back in Virginia that it is well worth the trip. Thanks, Walking Man and Grace & Glory! So far, due to haze & clouds, I've only been able to see it faintly, but enough to tell that it's there. I'm hoping to get a clearer view before I leave in the morning. Even without the skyline, though, the view is beautiful! The Hudson River is off to my left, with a big rocky bluff in the foreground and hills hugging its west bank.   I've been here alone since about 5:30, the way I expected to spend the night, but have just been joined by Cody, Beans, and Ben. I'm grateful for the company. The couple hours alone were nice, as well. I've gotten all of my chores done (even journaling!) except eating and brushing my teeth. I think that may be a record, as it's only 7:30. I feel so relaxed! I have one more short day (12) tomorrow, including a maildrop and resupply stop in Fort Montgomery. Then, I'm going to try to do a 19 and get crankin' again. One more thing of note - I should walk into town tomorrow with absolutely nothing edible except a few drink mixes. Hurray! (This is great success for a thru-hiker!)   Late addition - I forgot about something from this morning. Today I went through the "Lemon Squeezer." It's a rock formation the trail goes through that's just barely wide enough for a person to pass. I managed to get through with my pack on. It would have been fairly easy, except that the whole thing slants to the left, meaning that you must slant to the left continuously as you walk through. All in all a pretty fun feature, I thought. After the Lemon Squeezer, though, things got interesting! Right when you come out of it, there's a big wall right in front, and the white blazes go right over it. A blue-blazed trail marked "Easy Way" goes around to the left. Me being obstinate me, there was no way I was taking the blue blaze without a fight. The wall isn't particularly high (maybe 6-8 feet?), but requires actual climbing moves to get over. I tossed up my poles and began to attack it with pack on. I quickly realized that that was ridiculously stupid and was never going to happen. So, I hoisted up my pack (I could barely reach to plop it up there.) and assessed the situation again. I tried a couple of things and failed. I was about to take the blue blaze around, convinced that I couldn't (and maybe shouldn't) make it over alone, when I decided to try one more time. I felt so great when I finally stepped up, got hold round the tree to my left, and pulled myself to the top. This is the only time so far that I have taken my pack off to get through/over any part of the trail. It may seem small, but I was really proud of my accomplishment today! BTW - I can see the whole NYC skyline lit up now, and the Empire State Building stands out brightly. Very cool!