Date: 2017-08-12
From: Fitzgerald Falls

To: Wawayanda Creek
Miles today: 20.3
Weather: light rain

On my previous thru-hikes, there has always been a crucible moment when the landmarks stop being physical, such as lakes or passes or mountains, and start revolving around food instead.I suspect the deli blazing of New York* has prompted this moment on the AT because I'd specifically arranged my hike today to be bookended by two sessions of eating town food.(* Notwithstanding yesterday's #TrailFail in which I didn't visit a single deli.)But of course, hiking the AT -- and life in general -- doesn't always fit neatly into these scripts we write for ourselves.I'd chosen my campsite not just so I'd be set up to get to the first deli-blaze option when it opened but also so that there'd be no sign of my temporary occupation. But because of the rain that lasted for most of the night, I couldn't help leaving a conspicuous diamond-shaped dry patch on the leaf litter showing where my tent had been. As LNT failures go, it was one I could live with.The terrain remained pleasant for the first couple of miles to the next shelter, where there was a veritable nobo bubble in situ, thanks in part to the previous evening's downpour causing them to seek shelter.How many more of these nobo bubbles are we likely to see? Most of the nobos have already gone past and many of those stragglers at the back of the pack -- whether due to injury, indolence or excessive partying -- seem likely to flip to Katahdin from Harper's Ferry, the trail's halfway mark.Those present were a friendly bunch, although the fact that they were at the back of the pack seemed less surprising since they were just getting moving when I'd already hiked a few miles after an already leisurely start to my day so I'd arrive at the first trail food option when it opened at 10.30am.They including a family unit of a brother and sister thru-hiking with their father. The brother, Fiddle, had extended this literal tramily by adopting a kitten in Waynesboro, VA, and carrying him on top of his pack through West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and now New York. This peripatetic feline even had his own trail name: Odie the trail cat.They also warned of difficult trail ahead for me, which is a perpetual refrain from nobos that we'd mostly learned to ignore after so many previous well-meaning attempts at advice had proved to be baseless hype.I headed on and the trail was a real superhighway, but with two short sections where it took to the bedrock ribs that had remained unvegetated 20,000 years after the ice cap finally retreated from these parts. Just to emphasise the superhighway status, both of these were avoidable via blue-blazed trails to one side.As I approached the actual highway, I took a further blue-blazed trail heading to where the Guthook app said the two food options were sited.One was a creamery, offering ice cream sourced from the dairy farms in the valley below, but it didn't open until midday, which ruled that out. However the hot dog guy was supposed to open in mid-morning, which ought to allow me to still make it to a farm shop near Vernon, New Jersey, that was famous on the trail for its food.You know that epithet about assumption being the mother of all f-ups? I assumed from the Guthook icon and the descriptions that the parking lot opposite the creamery was where the hot dog guy rocked up in a mobile van.At 10.30am, the parking lot was still empty. Ten minutes later, I figured he must have cancelled for the day and so I walked despondently back to the trail via the highway... and in the process found the permanent hot dog van on the southern side of the road.Two chili cheese dogs later, my energy levels -- and my world view -- were much improved.This was fortunate, because the next six miles to the New York-New Jersey border fulfilled the nobos' trail warnings by following the crests of a series of bedrock ribs. And there was no blue-blazed route to avoid these, which were rendered even more tricky by the previous evening's rain.This made for slow and frustrating progress, until soon after I crossed the New York-New Jersey border and the trail abandoned the ridge and headed into a series of gently rolling hills. My average speed must have doubled by this point, but thanks to the dumbassery involved in finding the hot dog guy and then the slowness of the rock ribs that formed New York's farewell to the sobos, the afternoon was drawing on as I scaled the final ridge between me and Heaven Hill, with its gourmet farm produce shop.The final part of the journey involved a rare moment of steep terrain, which was dubbed -- and roundly criticised --by the nobos as the "stairway to hell", coming soon after the delights of Heaven Hill.However amid the going from the nobos came some good news: the farm stand was as good as the climb was bad and -- crucially -- closed at 7pm.By then it was 6pm and I cantered down the steep rock staircases, emerging at the road half an hour later. A few more minutes and I was standing outside Heaven Hill -- looking at a locked gate and a conspicuously empty parking lot.A guy walked past from the nearby farmhouse and explained they'd closed at 6pm. Dang! Then he asked how far I'd walked to get here. "About 18 miles," I replied, thinking he might be tempted to show some kindness to a hungry thru-hiker."Oh," he replied. "Cool." And then he continued walking. Dang again.At that point, my attention shifted to the next bit of trail food, at Pochuck farm restaurant, which was about three miles away. It was closed now but would open at 6am, so I needed to find somewhere to camp in between.This seemed uncertain, since the terrain in between was a mix of marshland and pastures. There were a couple of streams marked on Guthook but in each case it was so clearly agricultural that I didn't even try filtering from them.Just as it was getting dark, the trail headed through a patch of forest on an elevated shelf above the marshland. After a few false leads, I found a tent site that had clearly been used by previous thru-hikers. A few minutes later, my tent was up and I'd retreated within.Life is good.AT fact of the day: I dropped in to Wawayanda shelter in mid afternoon. One of the log book entries said "Wawayanda" is an ancient Indian word that translates as "under the flight path of La Guardia". It didn't seem like this was a good place for light sleepers...