Date: 2015-07-11
From: Unionville Municipal Park

To: Wawayanda Shelter
Miles today: 15.7
Weather: clear sky

Well, our perfect seeming camp site at the Unionville town park turned out to be far from perfect in the end. I had set up my tent while it was still light out and did not notice the light pole less than ten yards away, but when it came on shortly before nine, it was shining straight at me. Then there was the lady (on a date?) who was talking and giggling constantly around midnight, even though apparently she knew people were camped there. And finally the amount of condensation was unbelievable, so everything in my tent was damp. Also, I had miscalculated the distance to NJ 94 a bit and it was further than I thought and I had to walk the .7 back to the trail first, so I was very anxious about getting up early. All in all, it was not a restful night.But, I did get up early and was waiting at the General Store when they opened at six. They had fresh pastries from an Italian bakery and they all looked wonderful. I got a cinnamon roll the size of my head for the road and set off.The first few miles were to be flat, then there was a climb and then more to the road, but that description doesn't do it justice. The morning walk was beautiful!We walked around a Wildlife Reserve that could have been in Holland if not for the hills in the background. Wetlands and tall grasses, there even was a blue heron to complete the picture. I don't see them as often in the U.S. as you generally do in Holland.The downside to going through the wetlands of course were the bugs. There was no breeze today so any time I stopped moving, they were on me. Other than that, I thought the Reserve was really fun to walk through.The climb was work, but it was still cool so it wasn't too bad. And then the last section was a very impressive boardwalk of almost a mile, with a cool suspension foot bridge to boot. The bridge had a sign that warned of shallow water and hidden danger, I'm sure meant to keep people from jumping off the bridge into the stream. But to me it suggested anacondas and crocodiles hiding in the mud. I got to the road with lots of time to spare so I decided I should visit the garden center / ice cream place / market stand just down the road. Easy Strider and Qahog were there and I soon joined them with cherries and a lemonade. The cherries were wonderful!Journal reader and bona fide trail angel Barbara had contacted me a while back, generously offering to help if I needed anything when in this area. She came and met me at the ice cream place and gave me a big hug, despite my warning about my odiferous state! We gave Qahog a ride to Vernon where he was going to stay at the hostel and then Barbara very patiently shuttled me to the grocery store, the drug store and back to the ice cream place. I dried all my wet gear, we both had ice cream (really good!) and we admired the baby swallow in the swallow's nest right in front of the entrance. As if that all wasn't enough, Barbara had sandwiches and chocolate as trail magic (I took some of both with me) that she was going to hand out for a while.Barbara, it was great to meet you and I can't thank you enough for all your help today! I hope you get to go out there again for another section this year.After saying goodbye to Barbara, I immediately had the Stairway to Heaven to deal with. Mercifully, most of it was in the shade and it was actually not bad. It was very crowded though, being a nice Saturday in July, so there was some waiting for people coming down as others were going up and that kind of thing. When I got to the top, there was old AT trail as a side trail to a view. I wonder why they re-routed the AT away from the view? It was .8 each way so I didn't check it out.Not long after the summit, I found Southpaw sitting at a stream enjoying the day and drying her gear. Pain Wizard, who was camped in the park last night also, was there as well and later Prefontaine and Jester and a few hikers I didn't know arrived also. I had not seen Jester since Damascus. From there, it was only three more miles to the shelter. The shelters here and in New York are inconveniently spaced and so we end up doing very short or very long days. Because there's no camping in between either. New York is already annoying me and I haven't even arrived yet! That's on tap for tomorrow, along with another ice cream place and as many miles as we can manage to squeeze in around ice cream. Because it's all about priorities!Open map in new windowWant to add a map to your journal?