Date: 2007-07-05
From: Delaware Water Gap, PA

To: Brink Road Shelter, NJ
Miles today: 24.8
Weather: haze

(Erin) What a day! We left the hostel around 6:15 and started the walk over the Delaware River into New Jersey. The weather was still not looking good but we had to get moving and get on the trail. The first few miles were mostly uphill to Sunfish Pond, unfortunately there was no swimming allowed. If it had been a nice day it would have been tempting. That's where the rocks started to get a little bit bigger and more rock hopping. We met a family that was out for a few days that asked us a few questions about our hike. Its funny to see people's reactions when we tell them we have walked from Georgia and that we are going all the way to Maine. Some people are very shocked that we would want to do such a thing. Later we passed a group of kids from a local camp that had the same reaction. One girl said, "Wow you've been hiking for 3 months, we've only been out for an hour". Another girl wanted to know where we washed our clothes. As hard as the days can get and as mentally challenging as the trail is getting for me its still cool to think about what we are doing. It still is an amazing journey.    We made it to camp by 8:00pm, the earliest we have gotten to camp after doing over 24 miles. When we arrived and asked if there was room in the shelter, a lady name "Silver" said, "its a small shelter so there isn't any room left". Will was a little bit annoyed by this comment and told her that we have never heard a thru-hiker say that before, there is always room in the shelter. So that night only 4 people were in the shelter and they had plenty of room to spread out and be comfortable. We set up the tent and then went looking for water. It only took 30 minutes to find the water source and then started cooking dinner after 9:00. We are going to get up early again tomorrow and try to get more than 20 miles before my parents pick us up somewhere after High Point State Park.   (Willie) -- Apparently our communication lines broke down and we both wrote a journal for today. I guess we'll put them both on.Taking an unscheduled day off yesterday and wanting to take another day off with Erin¢s parents in a couple days could only mean one thing, a big day today. We planed on three medium days after the water gap but since we took a day off yesterday we decided to try to fit as many of those miles in to the two days we had left. After an unexpected very good nights sleep in the hostel we were up and on the trail by 6:15, with our sights set on New Jersey. I guess we were more on the road then on the tail, because the first two miles were on I-80 crossing the Delaware River, but by the time we were on the other side, we were in to NJ. With PA over and done with, we¢ve now finished 7 out of the 14 states. Only 7 more to go!Once we found the woods again, we started our climb out of the gap. Surprisingly, the climb wasn¢t that bad and it lead up to a nice glacier made lake call Sunfish Pond. Too bad you¢re not allowed to swim in it, because with the humidity we¢d already worked up a nice sweat after 6 miles. Instead of going swimming and cooling off, we were treated to a nice rocky walk around the pond. I guess NJ didn¢t get the message that the rocks were suppose to stop at the state line. Thankfully the wet slippery rocks didn¢t last long and soon enough we were at the top of Mt. Mohican where we had our first snack in NJ and some descent views of the water gap 1100¢ bellow us.We spent most of the rest of the day walking across ridge lines, climbing little mountains and hills that weren¢t in our books, and waiting for the thunder storms and rain to come. We had a few rumbles but apparently our numbers weren¢t up in the giant isolated T-storm lottery, so the most we had to deal with were some scattered showers that cooled us off the last hour of the hike. By 7:45 we were pulling up to the first shelter in NJ, a short 31.2 miles after the last shelter in PA, another reason for pushing a big day. The shelter was a little on the full side so we set up our tent and went on a half hour long claw through the woods in the dark to find the water. It was a descent spring once we found it, but maybe we should have gone looking for it in when it was light out.Tick Count: Willie 43 Erin 17Life Lesson: Maybe next to the bear boxes and under the sign that says ¢Warning: Bears are active in the area¢ isn¢t the best place to pitch a tent. Boy did I jump at just about every sound I heard in the middle of the night!