Date: 2017-08-09
From: RPH shelter

To: Graymoor Spiritual Life Center baseball field
Miles today: 19.3

Observing the passing parade of nobos is a bit like watching the seasons change. The dead-eyed speedsters who predominated early on were eventually replaced by the diligent hikers who retained a proper sense of enjoyment and now we're getting into the party bubble. They're the slower-moving ones who are on course to take six or seven months to complete their hikes, having struggled to escape the various vortexes of comfort that the trail provides between the actual hiking.When I took the quarter mile side trail to Canopus Beach in Fahnestock State Park and saw a dozen nobo hikers milling around, it was clear that most of them were in the party bubble.This point was particularly emphasised when it became obvious that most of these people had arrived the day before then hung around until 10am, when the park's concession stand opened again.As I was heading away again at 11.30am or so after a quick refueling stop for a hamburger, few of the overnighters showed any inclination to leave and one even cautioned, in all seriousness, against leaving in the hottest part of the day. It was clear this was a group that was immune to Katahdin fever, a common malady in which hikers are driven by the destination rather than the journey.The day was indeed hot but the trail was entirely within the tree line so the heat was certainly manageable. The trail was also mostly kind and we were yet to see evidence of what nobos had warned us about New York, which involved variations on: "It's really badly marked but if you can't see a white blaze, look for the nearest pile of rocks because the trail will go straight over it." As with nearly all such prognostications, we ignored it and said nothing, but were thinking: "Just wait till you get to Maine!" They'll find out soon enough.I took a break at the final road crossing, where I had three more miles before my intended destination for the night, which was a baseball field in a sprawling church complex used as a rehab centre. For reasons unknown to me, there's a 30+ mile gap between AT shelters so the church lets hiking addicts camp on the field for free.I'm not sure if it was my demeanour or the pastoral concerns of the locals but two cars stopped while I rested at the roadside before the final push and asked if I was ok.I was, and despite some hilly sections the final three miles took an unexpectedly short one hour and 15 minutes, to the extent that I questioned my map reading skills when I arrived at a road crossing just on the outskirts of the church complex because it seemed too soon.Usually at the end of the day, its easy to overestimate how far you've travelled, with a spirit-crushing effect when the reality becomes clear. I'll take this over that!Life is good.AT fact of the day: We're used to seeing groups of a dozen or so kids hiking bits of the trail as part of their annual summer camps. Today a truly enormous group of around 50 headed past as I was leaving Fahnestock State Park. This immediately brought to mind the huge school groups I'd encountered on the Israel Trail earlier in the year, which led me to joke that the Israeli Ministry of Education guidelines state that the minimum safe number for hiking is enough people to be able to recreate the crowd scene in Ben Hur. Sure enough several of the hikers in the group today had Hebrew writing on their shirts, identifying them as "shvilistim" (the Hebrew word for hikers). Maybe it's a cultural thing?