Date: 2006-01-13
To: Jersey Section
Miles today: 0.0

This weekend Tribes and I planned a 53.7 mile section from Lakes road south to Rt. 206. Thursday night we were blessed with a ride from Tracy and our night insertion went off without a hitch. We hiked the 1.5 miles to the wildcat shelter and barely needed a headlight due to the almost full moon. We made a fire, cooked dinner, held safety meetings, and just thoroughly enjoyed being back on the trail. Tribes showed me how to hang my hammock in the shelter so I was able to make my temporary home about four feet off the shelter floor. Halfway through the night we were woke by an erie coyote howl. He was probably telling his coyote friends that he had just found dinner because about 5 min later he was joined by what sounded like 10 more. They sounded really close, maybe 100 yards away. I was too tired to care though and knew they would eat Tribes first since he was on the floor....HA. The next morning we enjoyed relaxing in the shelter since we only had to cover 12 miles to the Wawayanda shelter. The whole day had a strange aura to it. There was a lot of fog with a visibility of only about 50 yards. There were no view points to see that day, just a white cloud into nothingness. Our favorite point of interest for the day was Furnace Creek. There is something magical about that waterfall. We passed the NY/NJ border and took silly photos then continued on to the Wawayanda shelter. We covered 12 miles with relative ease and made it to the shelter just before the sun set. We knew rain was on the way so I opted to sleep in the shelter instead of in my hammock. The shelter was too small to hang the hammock so I had to rough it and sleep on the ground. We used my rain fly to keep the rain out. Luckily Tribes scoped out watermarks in the shelter by where he was about to sleep and deduced that there was a leak. Sure enough once the rain started that side of the shelter got super wet. Hikers Beware...the left side of the Wawayanda shelter (looking at it from the front) has a leak. Saturday morning we woke up before sunrise giving us time to prepare for the long day ahead. I asked Tribes if I could hit the snooze button, but he said no. We were planning on doing super huge miles to the High Point shelter which was 24.2 miles down the trail. The heavy rain we expected during the night didn't start until about when we woke up. So we just had to grin and bear it start hiking. It's always hard to take that first step out of the dry shelter into the pouring rain. We didn't even make it 2 miles down the trail and the rain had stopped!! Not only had the rain stopped, but sun came out and starting shinning away. It ended up getting so warm (in the 60's I believe) that before we got to pinwheel vista and rt. 94 Tribes and I were hiking in a T-Shirt...IN JANUARY!!! We got down to rt. 94 to find that Heaven Hill was closed, but no worries, we kept on hiking. This section of trail is very flat because it is in the valley between the Vernon ridge and the Pochuck ridge and because it is flat, the water tends to collect in swampy areas. There are (old) bog bridges to get you across, but they just don't cut is sometimes. By the time Tribes and I made it to the beginning of Pochuck Mtn our feet were soaked. No worries again, onward we go, buzz kill swamp won't get us down! Up and over Pochuck Mtn we go. We stopped at Pochuck shelter for a lunch break. The weather was still beautiful and showing no signs of what was to come. We made it down Pochuck Mtn unscathed and found ourselves in the Wallkill River NWR. We knew something was up when the fog in the old sod farms was creepily sliding towards us. Then suddenly we see it. Over the mountain came the storm front. It was a wall of black clouds and we knew they meant business. The temp began to drop and we immediately donned our rain gear again as well as an additional layer of clothing. We were almost out of the sod farm and onto oil city road when all hell broke loose. The wind picked up to about 20 mph and it was raining sideways. With no protection from the forest we were stuck in the open and subject to whatever the storm wanted to throw at us. At this point we had about 8 miles to go until the high point shelter. We knew that if the temp kept dropping like it was that soon this rain storm would turn to ice and eventually snow. We kept on trudging and the rain did turn to ice and made the walking dangerous at best. Tribes, being the AT Guru that he is, said there was something called "The Secret Shelter" just up ahead, about .5 miles. He didn't know if it was open in the winter or not so the plan had now become...walk to the secret shelter, pray it is open, if not we set up camp and hopefully wait out the storm. We got to the road where the Secret Shelter was claimed to be and walked on that way. By now the ice had turned to snow and the ground was almost covered in white. Tribes was ahead of me and tried the door first. It didn't open right away so I thought it was locked, but he pulled harder and it opened. We were blasted by a wave of HOT AIR. We were like "no freakin way is this place heated". Sure enough it was and not only that it had running water. Not just ordinary running water, but HOT running water. Oh yeah, there was also a SHOWER. So here we are, thinking the world is coming to an end, and we just took showers in hot water. Jim Murray you are a God among men and we owe you for leaving that place open and heated in the winter. We cooked dinner and did the usual pre-sleep rituals, hung all our gear out to dry, and listened to the donkeys make noise all night. Oh yeah Murray has donkeys on his property and they are quite entertaining. Sunday morning we woke up and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground where we were. The temps were at least in the 20's with high winds. When we stepped out of the shelter to head up High Point, a red tail hawk that was circling the field came over and flew within 30 ft of our heads saying hello. That hike was pretty intense getting up to the highest point in NJ. Poor Tribes walks faster than me so he broke snow all day long. We walked through some drifts that were up to our thighs and as we got higher in elevation there was more snow. On the Kittatinny ridge there was prob 6 inches. The whole day was cold, but for the most part out of the wind. Only when the wind got you did you feel cold. When we got up on the ridge there was no more mountain to block the wind so we got hit in the face with 30+ mph winds. This instantly sucked all of the heat from us and it was all we could do to stumble to the ranger station on rt. 23. The walking was pretty dangerous too. Ice covered rocks also covered with 6 in of snow. By the time I got to the ranger station, Tribes had already called his pops for a ride. It didn't take much persuasion to get me to head home too since the forecast for the night was 0* with a wind chill of -15*. I am tough, but come on....-15*....that's intense. All in all a kick ass hike covering 39.4 miles in three days. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am out there for the experience, not for covering miles. Just because we had to stop short doesn't mean we failed. If anything we made a responsible decision since our bags were only rated to 20*. Until next time.....