Date: 2003-06-28
From: South Fields, NY

To: Black Mountain
Miles today: 11.1

11.1 miles from New York 17 at Arden, NY to Black Mountain. See what comes around goes around. Yesterday I took credit for doing 39 miles when I only did 27. Today I walked about 26 miles and can only take credit for 11.1 miles. If there¢s one thing about New York that I can say for certain is that New Yorkers do not pick up hitchhikers. I walked 7 miles and change from the Tuxedo Motel into Harriman and back. Darn close to 14 miles worth of walking with my thumb out. I never even got a blink. No one picks up hitchhikers apparently in New York. As it is I have had a hard time with the hitchhiking along the whole trail. Other people get picked up very easily. I have a difficult time. The reason that is the case ( I was joking with someone the other day and I think it¢s really true ) is because I don¢t look American enough. I¢m not blond haired and blue eyed. I¢m not a young kid that somebody wants to stop for. In this area of the country they¢re probably thinking that the guy with the mustache and beard that looks like Tommy Chung could be an Osama Bin Laden associate. They aren¢t about to stop for me. Anyway, I got up rolling pretty early again.   Before 6 o¢clock I was up and getting all my stuff packed up. I went through the ritual of getting my shoes on and making sure that the moleskin and the duct tape was in place to cover up as best I could. The one good thing about having had to walk to Harriman the whole way is by the time I got there and got to the shoe store that I was headed to my feet had swollen up to the normal size. To the size that they swell up to during a normal day of hiking. The gentleman at the shoe store ended up measuring them for me and sure enough they were size 11. Anyway, I¢m getting ahead of myself. I got up early, got out of the Tuxedo Motel and went down to the Red Apple Restaurant across the street from the motel and downhill. Turns out that it¢s a cafeteria style diner which apparently was pretty famous in it¢s heyday. Before the interstate that runs next to New York 17 went through, New York 17 was actually the main thoroughfare going into the big city. The Red Apple Restaurant and motel was a very popular place. Now it¢s run by Greeks that are apparently trying to restore it to it¢s original stature. I walked through the door of the Red Apple about 6:30 or 6:20. The second I walked in the door there was a gentleman sitting at the table very close to the front door. He immediately asked me if I was a thru-hiker. He seemed to be very animated. Very excited. I told him yes and he said he had been wanting to meet a thru-hiker for awhile. He¢d been coming to that area and had only recently realized that the grungy people walking through there with the backpacks on were walking 2000 miles and that this town was a stop over. I sat at the table next to his and he asked me questions and I answered them. We sat there and talked for awhile. He turned out to be a gentleman named Richard Fisher who is an entrepreneur of sorts. He is in the entertainment industry as a manager for concerts and bands. Lately he has gotten into book publishing as well. His company was Top Dog Productions which I¢ve actually heard of. I recall hearing the name on the radio as being involved with managing certain concerts that had taken place in south Florida. Apparently, according to him and these were his words, he had more money than he knows what to do with so he gets into other things and has recently started a book publishing company for independents. For people who can¢t get their stuff published at other places. Richard Fisher turned out to be a heck of a nice guy. We sat there and talked a little bit. He gave me his email address and I gave him the website for Trailjournals.com. He seemed to be very interested, very eager to read the journals. He ended up paying for my breakfast which was just unbelievable. I got out of there about 7:15 or so. I got my backpack on and started walking very rapidly toward Arden, New York which is about 3 miles away. I tried hitchhiking the whole way and no one picked me up. I made it there in about an hour. 3 miles. 3.1 miles I believe it was. I made it there in about an hour at 8:15 only to find out the post office did not open until 10:00. The post office at Arden, New York, which was this tiny, little wooden building next to the railroad tracks, is only open from 10:00 to 12:00 on Saturdays. So, I had a decision to make here. Was I going to sit here and wait or was I going to take a chance of running in to Harriman, which was 4 or so miles away, and try to get a pair or sneakers that I could wear or boots or something that would fit me and then be able to get back in time to get my mail drops, repackage stuff to send out and so on and so on? I decided that was what I was going to do and I ended up once again hiking like heck. A good part of it was uphill toward Harriman 4 miles away. Nobody picked me up. I had my thumb out the whole time. I would say easily that hundreds of cars passed by. At one point a cop car passed by. I didn¢t realize it was a cop car until I already had my thumb out. I rapidly put it down. He went by. Then 15 minutes later I see him come back from the other direction. I didn¢t pay him any thought. I just waved at him. Next thing I know, this big headed cop had made a U-turn and come up within 5 feet behind me without me hearing him. He turned his sirens on and scared the hell out of me. I turned around and he was a young guy, maybe in his twenties, and he made a gesture with his thumb which I mistook for him telling me to get in the back seat. I thought he was going to give me a ride. I went to the back door to open it and it was locked. I went back to the front window where he asked me what I thought I was doing hitchhiking. I told him ¢I¢m trying to get to Arden, to the post office up here¢. To which he tells me, ¢ It¢s not that far. It¢s only about a mile¢. To which I responded, ¢Well, I started at the motel which is about 3 miles back¢ and I told him ¢Plus, after walking 1400 miles, if I hit a road I really try to avoid walking on the road¢. He was not in any way friendly whatsoever. Down south I¢ve had cops actually stop and pick me up and give me a ride in the southern U.S.. Different rules, different places and different personalities. This guy was just being by the book. He was not friendly. Nothing. He basically told me I was breaking the law. Well, not basically, that is exactly what he said. I was breaking the law. It¢s illegal to hitchhike.   He said I needed to stop hitchhiking and I needed to get on the other side of the road and walk down the road facing traffic. He said if he came by again and I was on the wrong side of the road and hitchhiking he would arrest me. So, fine. I got on the left side of the road and proceeded to walk toward Arden. The post office was closed so I continued to walk towards Harriman and hitchhike from the left hand side of the road which didn¢t work at all. I came up to a Mobile gas station and asked directions toward the Wal-Mart. The lady pointed out to me where the Wal-Mart was. I also asked about a strip shopping center that had a couple of shoe stores which she told me was past the Wal-Mart. I never found the Wal-Mart. I saw the signs but I couldn¢t figure out where the heck I was supposed to go. So, I just kept on walking the extra 14 of a mile and ended up getting to a sporting goods store where I bought a pair of New Balance running shoes. They were just wonderful, in terms of, I could actually walk and move my toes without wincing. By this time I had already walked 7 miles at a very rapid rate. It was 9:20 when I got to the shoe store. It was 9:40 when I left. The post office opened at 10 and they closed at 12. I knew I was going to take at least an hour to unpack everything and send out all the mail I needed to send. I tried to find out if there was a taxi that would run back. Nobody seemed to have the phone number for the taxi or the yellow pages to find all the taxi¢s. I stopped at several different places and finally just got so frustrated feeling like I was losing time that I just started walking like heck again back south this time. Once again I tried to hitchhike and once again not getting picked up. I made it down into Arden at 10:40 and got my packages. One of them was an Express package from Go-Lite. I had called Go-Lite and told them that they made a really stupid raincoat. This stupid raincoat that I had up there last week when it was raining hard and the wind was blowing¢¦the flaps were so light that the wind was blowing up the flaps, the rain was coming in through the zippers on the pockets and the dummies sealed the pockets. Taped and sealed them shut so that water could not escape from them. As the pockets got water into them they sagged and completely exposed the zipper so the rain kept pouring into them. The next thing you know I was carrying a quart of water in each pocket. I called up Go-Lite and I told them I thought they made a stupid raincoat that I paid a 100 bucks for. I told them what happened and the lady was a little defensive about it but she agreed to exchange the rain jacket for a newer version of it which they did. But, basically, it¢s the identical jacket with the identical flaps on it. The only difference being is that this one had a back vent. At any rate, one of the other boxes was a bump box which has all my gear that I sent from town to town. Extra socks. Extra fuel. A backup backpack and things like that. A second box, a priority box, that I had sent from my last stop was a pair of boots that I had exchanged and other odds and ends. The third box was my food mail drop. Now I had four pairs of shoes. Two pairs of Montrail boots. Actually 5 pairs. Two pairs of Montrail boots, two pairs of Garmonts and the New Balance shoes that I was wearing. The only ones that fit now were the Garmonts. So, I had a $400.00 investment in boots that no longer fit me. I boxed them up and sent them home. I boxed up the old jacket and sent it to Go-Lite. I boxed up my bump box and sent it along and then I repackaged and picked through all the food that I wanted for this coming week. I packed my backpack. It took until 12:30 to pack all that stuff up and by then the post office had already been closed up. So, I sat outside and got everything finished up. I got walking back down toward the trail which went through Harriman State Park. I got back on the trail about a quarter to 1 or 1 o¢clock or so. After having spent a good part of the morning walking on road¢¦.which always screws up your feet worse than walking on the trail because you¢re walking on hard pavement¢¦.after having spent up till 1 o¢clock today walking 14 miles now I could begin counting trail miles. As I got up to the trail there were a couple of other thru hikers that were crossing the road on the AT. One of them was a fellow named Itchy Foot who I¢d never met before and his hiking partner was Sandal something or other. Another guy was named Knee Socks. They sat down to rest and get some water for a few minutes. I talked to them for a few minutes and told them about what was in town. They were trying to figure out whether they wanted to go down and eat or just keep going. I left them all pretty quickly. I came across a garbage can after a couple of miles that was on the dirt road so I emptied out all my garbage into it. Knee Socks came up on me at that point. I talked to him for a few minutes and then I left and kept on walking. I ran into an older lady laying down on the rocks on the trail. I talked to her for a few minutes. I hiked another 14 of a mile past her and there was a shelter. So, I yelled back to her that there was a shelter right there. I went in to the shelter and sat down for a little bit. I got something to eat. The lady came in about 10 minutes after. Then Knee Socks came in about 10 minutes after that. We sat and talked and found out that about a mile further up there was supposed to be a campground of some sort with vending machines and a water spickett and restrooms. It closed early and we didn¢t know what early meant so Knee Socks and I decided that we were gonna haul it and make sure that we got our cokes and our water and used the bathroom. I left first and hiked at a pretty good clip. I got down to the road, Arden Valley Road was the name of it, and go downhill pretty steeply for 3/10¢s of a mile to Tratiori Lake, I believe. It was quite a culture shock to me because this place was¢¦.basically walking out of the woods down to a recreational area. It very rapidly became extremely crowded. There were thousands of people out at this lake. Picnic tables everywhere. BBQ¢s going. Little kids running around. Big, fat white men wading around in the water because the Tratiori has a beach. This is very much a park. A place to hang out and swim and BBQ. It was a little overwhelming for me. I just don¢t get the chance very much to see that many half naked people running around in that kind of crowded situation. Knee Socks came in about 10 minutes after me. I¢d already gotten one coke down and was eating an ice cream sandwich. He wanted to soak his feet in¢¦..he wanted to go wading in the lake. After he got his cokes and sat down for a minute I got another ice tea. Some Hispanic guy asked me if I had a knife he could borrow to cut a watermelon. So, I lent him my knife and he cut the watermelon and offered me a piece and offered Knee Socks a piece. We sat there eating watermelon. Knee Socks ended up going down to the water with his backpack. I left. Actually, I got some water first then I left. I started hiking up to the shelter which was about 4-5 miles up. I made it up to the shelter about 10 minutes to 6 or so only to find it completely, overwhelmingly packed. Packed by day hikers. This is a big beef with a lot of AT hikers. It¢s one thing to get to shelter to find that it¢s full. It¢s a different thing to hike up to a shelter to find that it¢s full of people who park their cars a mile down the hill at the road and hiked down to the shelter and filled it up after you¢ve walked 25 miles to try and get to that shelter. You¢re so darn tired you don¢t have the energy left to set up a tent or the time. Here are these people who by all rights are not even supposed to be in that shelter. The shelters are here for the thru hikers. It¢s very frustrating and there¢s really nothing you can do about it. You can¢t kick them out unless you cause a big scene. Basically, you have to leave and that¢s what I did. I left. I didn¢t leave before I found out that another lady named Commander & Chief had just come through there. This was important because three days before that, when I was at the Mohican Outdoor Center, a manager at Mohican Outdoor Center told me that somebody had called there from Commander and Chiefs house. I think she had a family emergency. Someone had died. They were trying to get a message to her. I told her, the manager, that I would try and catch up with Commander & Chief and give her the message. The dirty day hikers told me that Commander & Chief had gone through there and I read the register and she¢d had about an hour and a half head start on me. I decided to leave and try to catch up to her to relay the message. I did end up catching up to her about 40 minutes later. She had camped out for the night at Bear Mountain. She¢d already gotten the message back at High Point but in the meantime I told her that I¢d spent the last 100 miles trying to catch up to her. There¢s a good spring there bubbling out that she was camped next to. I went ahead and filtered the water and went ahead and walked about 14 mile down this logging road. I pitched my own camp and set up my hammock and here I am for the night.