Date: 2014-07-23
From: Shhh...the secret shelter

To: Wawayanda Shelter
Miles today: 18.5
Weather: light rain

Well once again we all woke up late and had a late start to the day. My bed was in the basement of the cabin so I laid in bed until I heard one of the girls' voices upstairs before I got up. Unfortunately Mr. Delaware is a punctual man and I don't think was to pleased with us sleeping in as I heard him pacing around the upstairs for a bit. Finally though we were up and going and hit the trail around 11 which was a bit late to start an eighteen mile day. Before we headed out to the trailer said our goodbyes to the Delaware's, this would probably be the last time we was them on the trip. They are two amazing people who took us in and treated us like we were part of their family, letting us stay with them in two beautiful cabins and hanging out with them are some of the most memorable times I have while out here, thank you again.   So we were off and the day started out nicely except for the heat which hit us hard while walking in the fields in which there was a lot of them today. Whole walking through the first of these fields, I see a light reflecting off a bald head and said to Atlas,"holy crap is that Guppy?" Needless to say about a half mile up a uphill we see James,Tim and Guppy sitting at the top. I was pretty excited, I haven't seen Tim or Guppy since Trail Days in May and now here they are. Tim looks the same but Guppy is now sporting a full beard and the cheeks are gray colored,doesn't look like the Guppy I hiked with. We sat at the top of the hill for a while to catch up and we all hiked out together, we're about four miles into the hike and we already took an hour break, this is going to be a long day. The best part of the day was hiking the perimeter of the Wallkill Preserve because of the scenery. The interior is a marshy environment with some ponds and there were so many Great Blue Herons and egrets in the water and some flying around, it was a beautiful scene. After the preserve we had a steep uphill to the Pochuk Mtn shelter where we were going to take a break, the sky was darkening and thunder was rumbling so we tried to hike up it as quick as we could but the heat was stifling us. We got to the shelter and I looked at my radar app and it showed the storm north of us so we had a break and Atlas and I hiked on while Delaware stayed back with Tim and James.   Water was scarce so we filled up wherever we could which wasn't the easiest as the streams had weak flows so it took awhile to get something out of them. Once we crossed county road 517, we had a half mile walk on a boardwalk over a swampy area and it was really cool, the heat wasn't too bad and we had a breeze so it was a nice walk especially with all the birds singing. While haring up to the last big uphill climb we saw a bunch of people setting up for a dubstep music festival and contemplated on dropping but it was 6:30 and we still had six miles left so we rolled on. The climb up Wawayanda mountain was hard, it was all climbing up steep boulders which took us more time but we finally got to the top and headed on. About a half mile from the shelter we saw a good sized black bear heading down to the river for a drink, he saw us and didn't really care and headed on into the woods. We for the shelter around 8:30 and it was dark and we were cranky and beadle more so when we had to walk about 10 minutes to get water but this is sort of the life so we sucked it up and did it. We had dinner and got eaten up by the mosquitos, they are out in full force now and are vicious, my legs looks like they have chicken pox.   I'm finally sleeping in my tent after such a long hiatus and everything is clean and smells good so it's refreshing to be in here. There's some light rain coming down and the sounds of it hitting the tent is so peaceful and serene. Tomorrow is a big day, finally crossing the border into New York,so excited!