Date: 2003-08-05
From: Vernon, NJ

To: Greenwood Lake, NY
Miles today: 15.2

How do you describe the most miserable day of your life? The one where, if you're out on the Trail, it just might be the one that sends you home...We got up with plenty of time to get ready and on the Trail by 10. We all slept really well...the beds at the motel were perfect. We got a ride part of the way to the Trailhead with an ex-hippie...she does some hiking. We started out thinking we were going to have a great day...the weather was just right, and the terrain seemed to be cooperating. We quickly hiked through our first 5 miles to the first shelter. We met Roadie, Viking, Flatlander and Pushing Up Daisies there. We took a break, and everyone but Roadie left ahead of us. It started to rain...we moved into the shelter from the picnic table to wait it out. Thunder and lightning accompanied torrents of rain. It eased up a bit, and we headed out, only to be drenched moments later when the rain started again in earnest...and never stopped. What we didn't know was that this was to be a day of rock climbing...large boulders and rocks covered with algae and lichen might as well have been covered with ice, with th!e rain coming down. We came to one spot where it took the four of us at least half an hour to pass...it was a slick downhill rock that we had to creep out on at a small crevasse, then sit down, slide for a precarious bit till our feet hit another crack in the rock. Then we had to balance our way down one more short section, where water was flowing down the rock we were supposed to be using as steps. I was sure that one of us would fall there...and I thought it would be me, as on the first section, I lost my grip first with my poles, then my boots. I said that NJ must be saying goodbye to us in it's own unimitable way. That was before we got to NY. Yup, another state down, and we did a brief dance at the state line, but things went downhill (not literally!) from there. We were taken over EVERY rock ridge that existed...even though there were perfectly good woods to walk through. I was lucky...I was the only one who didn't fall down...Gerri fell many times, Randy fell! three or four times, and Roadie fell twice. She took off toward the end, and lost us. Oh, I did have a copperhead strike at me...it was by the side of the Trail, and all I saw was grass move. I thought it was a frog, and bent over to look...it jumped a bit out of its coil to threaten me. I screamed and backed away. We gave it a wide berth when Gerri and Randy got there. It ended up taking us 6 hours to do less than 9 miles...and when we got close to where we were going to stop for the night, we could hear the road for over an hour, but kept NOT coming to it. We came to a clearing where I could see power lines, but when we got there, it wasn't the road. I started crying. We finally got to the road at 8:30, and went to the ice cream stand that Blip had told me about. We called around to try and find a room...we were at the end of our ropes. There were no vacancies everywhere...I really thought I was going to crack. Then I heard Gerri say "you'll come pick us up?" I started crying then...this time with relief. Man, I was such an emo!tional wreck. We ordered some malts and ice cream and Robert, from Anton's on the Lake, came to pick us up. I started shivering in the back seat...a combinaton of reaction, being wet and drinking a chocolate malt. I got the first shower, as Robert and Randy were worried that I might have hypothermia. Robert and his wife, Tricia, gave us a Chinese menu to order from and brought Randy to pick up the food. They had movies for us to choose from in the office, and beer, wine and soda in the room. I thought maybe I'd died and gone to heaven...Tricia and Robert were so wonderful to us. We watched a movie and went to sleep...I wasn't going to quit the Trail today, thanks to the kindness of our innkeepers.