Date: 2013-08-02
From: William Brien Shelter

To: View Entry
Miles today: 14.9
Weather: clear sky

An uniquely diverse and extremely touristy day of hiking today. As we climbed West Mountain we passed a lot of Asian and German day hikers. At the top of the summit we could hear and sort of see a Native American festival going on. We descended into a gap and then started up a long and tiresome climb to the top of Bear Mountain. Once at the top we stopped at a vending machine area to drink a couple of Cokes and chat with Smiley and Lost & Found. On the descent of this mountain we were asked by every passing day hiker "How much further to the top?" , "Are we almost there?!" , "Is this halfway yet?!?".At the top of each mountain today you could see beautiful views of the Hudson River and also the following mountain that would need climbed next. At the bottom of Bear Mountain was a very large picnic area that skirted the side of a lake, a small zoo, a park, another lake closer to the river, a public pool, and a very busy intersection. The sidewalks were over packed as families were gathered for cookouts on this good weather Saturday. The majority of people here are Hispanic. It is somewhat of a culture shock. We make our way through the crowds and follow the white blazes that lead to the Bear Mountain Zoo. The trail actually goes through the zoo and admission is free for thru-hikers. This is something that stood out to me when previously reading books about the trail and I'd been excited about it for weeks now. Bear Mountain Zoo is also the lowest point of elevation on the entire AT at just 124 feet above sea level! - - sadly we got to the zoo entrance just shortly after they had closed for the day. Our only option was to take the side trail around the zoo. This was a poor choice as it was nasty, overgrown and obviously rarely ever used by hikers. Just walking on the sidewalk another quarter-mile would have been the smarter safer route in this case. Before crossing Bear Mountain Bridge we need to get a food resupply. It takes to hitches but we finally get to the MyTown Marketplace grocery store just 3 miles down the road. "New York Steve" helps us out the most by actually taking us where we wanted to go. The first guy was a little goofy and didn't want to commit to much driving so he dumped us at a closed bagel shop after only 1 mile. New York Steve tells us that he helped assist Jennifer Pharr Davis at some point in her record breaking hike and that he is currently training to complete his own thru hike in 2014. We shop for a little while, it's now almost 7pm, and I'm getting anxiety about getting back to the trail since we had some troubles hitching to the store. Smirks doesn't worry - she is so optimistic in these situations. We sit on the ground outside the entrance/exit doors of the market not even trying to hitch and a guy comes out with groceries offering us a ride back to trail. The guy is friendly and even pays a small toll fee to take us over the bridge so we don't have to walk it (damn, another small snippet of trail I will need to redo by foot someday). It's getting close to dark now so we speed up to find a water source and campsite listed in my guide book but neither exist and we end up pitching the tent in the dark right on top of a side trail just after a landmark named "Anthony's Nose".