Date: 2007-10-05
From: Unionville, NY

To: Delaware Water Gap, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

I awoke on the morning of the fourth to hear even more crazy donkey noises. As I was packing up, Jim showed up, and we stood around and talked until 9:30. I had hoped to be on the trail at 7:30, so that obviously didn't happen. He has done tons of hiking, and recommended the GH5 trail, which goes for about 1600 miles from Amsterdam to Nice. He did it right before he did the AT, and said that it was amazing. Maybe that's what I'll do in the summer of 2009! The terrain in Jersey surprised me incredibly. The rocks that Engineman had talked about didn't really materialize, and it's all ridge walks! I only had to climb twice in the whole day, and once I got up, it was just straight ridgewalks. Towards the end of the day, I was doing 3.5 miles without any problems...totally amazing. Through the whole day, though, I didn't seen any other thru-hikers. There were some weekenders (apparent from the lawn chairs strapped to their packs), but that was it. I went through High Point State Park, which was neat, as there was a huge monument on top of the mountain. I arrived at the park headquarters pretty bummed that the Coke machine was totally out of every single drink possible. However, I did get water, which was nice, because I had gone all morning on one bottle of water. It's been incredibly dry, and it's very hard to find water. At the end of the day, I turned down the sidetrail to the shelter, expecting to spend another night alone in a shelter, to find about 20 people there! There was a backpacking class from the local community college, and there were tents everywhere from them. There were also two brothers, Jeff & Kevin, who were doing a section hike, and were staying in the shelter. I appologized to them for seeming crazy and talking a lot, but this was the first time in nearly a week that I had actually seen people in a context other than a quick passing on the trail. One of the backpacking class kids wants to hike the trail in a few years, and I spent quite a bit of time answering his questions and giving a bit of advice. The heat has been incredibly oppressive since I got back on the trail, especially at night. Unfortunately, I now have an incredibly warm down-filled sleeping pad, which makes things even hotter. During the day, it's tortuous to hike, to say the least, with highs pushing the 90s and astronomical humidity levels. Awoke the morning of the 6th, pumped to have a great water source at the shelter to camel up from, a bagel store 2.5 miles south of the shelter, and a free Mountain House meal from Jeff and Kevin, who had decided to get off of the trail because Kevin was getting blisters and didn't want to mess up his feet 3 weeks before running the NYC Marathon. I checked the Companion's elevation listings for the 20.9 miles that I had to do for the day, and was incredibly pumped to only find one climb!!! I hit up the bagel place, where the guy working was abrasive and rude to say the least, but the bagel was good. I pumped water out of the adjacent lake because the guy was so rude that I didn't want to bother asking him to get some tap water. The climb up to the ridge was not incredibly pleasant. Even though it was done before 9, it was already scorching hot. I selected a nice pace, and started south. I arrived at the only shelter that I would pass for the day to find that the water was dry, which was no fun. Also, I couldn't find the privy, because in NY & NJ, they seem convinced that it wouldn't be incredibly helpful to have little maps of the shelter sites posted on the shelters, as they seem to be able to do everywhere else before NY & NJ. I headed up to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain with only 8 oz of water and 14 miles to go. As I came down off of the mountain, though, I came across a somewhat stagnant stream. Luckily I use a filter to treat my water, because I was able to pump right out of it, and drank a liter before filling my bottle up again and heading out. I came across a fire tower that was actually staffed due to the really dry conditions, and climbed up to the top and talked to the kid working there for a bit. He said it was slow because of the humidity, but that it was supposed to dry out but be hotter the next day, so it was potentially about to get interesting. I headed down the mountain and arrived at a retreat center run by the AMC (same people that do the huts in the Whites & Presidentials in New Hampshire). For 2 bucks, I got a tentsite, towel and hot shower, which was great. I cooked up the Mountain House from Kevin and Jeff, which tasted great, and fell asleep listening to my iPod (I love being able to listen to music at night now)!I awoke the morning of the 7th to slightly cooler temps, which was nice, and ate a quick breakfast. Because of the abundant water, I decided to camel up before heading out. For those of you that are not familiar with cameling up, it's when you drink enough water that you feel sick, then drink a few sips more, then refill your bottle for the trail. I've been cameling up somewhat regularly since I got on the trail without any problems. However, this time I pushed it a bit too far, and the feeling sick and drinking a bit more turned into actually getting sick. I threw up all over the little trail to my campsite, but it was all water, which was nice, because it meant that I didn't miss any calories from my breakfast! Only 10.4 miles stood between me and Pennsyvania, which felt awesome, and I made great time, again, into the Delaware Water Gap area. Once I got about 3 miles from the gap, people started to be everywhere! There were a bunch of illegally camped people at a lake up on top of the mountain, and as I started to descend down to the gap, more and more people showed up. It got to the point that I really needed to pee, but there were too many people to be able to pee on the side of the trail, which I had never experienced before. I made it down into the gap without any other issues, and walked across the rather lengthy bridge into Pennsylvania. It felt great to make it into yet another state, but unfortunately there were no signs, at least that I saw. I hit up a diner in town for lunch, and swung by a new outfitter that had just set up shop to grab a Clif bar and a Lara bar. It just so happened that the only two bars they had left were those, and for each one they had my favorite flavor! Amazing. I headed out of town, and when I arrived at the first shelter, I found that Coffee and Torque, who had been ahead of me, had not signed into to the registry. I came to the conclusion that I must have missed then in town, and that I had passed them. I grabbed 60 ounces of water and headed south, planning on stealthing somewhere along the trail. I had made it all the way through Jersey without seeing any bears, so it came as no surprise when I finally saw some. I was about 4 miles past the shelter when I saw two bears, neither of them too close, and I pushed on 2 more miles to be safe and set up camp. The first one that I saw was running away, and the second one, which was just about 100 yards further down the trail, was sitting on the ground eating something. I was rather surprised that my pulse didn't go up as high as I expected, I guess because when I saw the first one, it was already running away!