Date: 2008-05-29
From: William Brien Memorial Shelter NY

To: Graymoor Spiritual Life Center NY
Miles today: 15.3
Weather: broken clouds

Day 102 ¢ Thursday May 29 ¢ Graymoor Spiritual Life Center NY ¢ Miles Today: 15.3 Total Miles: 1396.9We had an interesting evening last night. It was about 8:30. Grasshopper was dozing with her earplugs in and Brakeman was just half asleep. All of a sudden Brakeman heard the other people in camp shouting, "Bear in camp, bear in camp! Go away bear, go away bear!"   In addition, they were banging their hiking sticks and clapping their hands to make noises to scare the bear. Grasshopper of course hears nothing. Brakeman shakes Grasshopper awake and says he thinks there's a bear in camp and we need to get outside and see what's going on. Not sure if that is a really good game plan, but in our half sleepy state, we crawled out of the tent to investigate. Sure enough, about 15' from the tent is a big black bear. Its hair was standing straight up ¢ a good indication that the bear is not a happy camper or happy with us campers! We started yelling, the bear soon ran about twenty yards away, stopped and turned to look at us. Brakeman picked up one of the rocks we had placed by the tent stakes and heaved it at the bear. Missed. But the rock hit a dead tree and made a big thud. It was enough to send the bear away.   It moved on from our camp, though not at a fast pace. We all climbed back into our tents and went back to sleep. Glad the bear moved on and our food is safe! Oh yea, and us too (i.e., safe, that is.)It was about 50 degrees this morning when we headed on up the trail, which welcomed us immediately with a steep boulder climb. It wasn't too hard until we got to the Palisades Interstate Parkway, a divided highway where all the cars go about 100 mph into NYC, which is 34 miles away. We stood alongside the parkway for quite a while, watching the speed of the cars and trying to judge when we would be able to cross safely without becoming part of the cement. We made it across safely and on up the hill we went. Once we got to the top of the next ridge we could see the NYC skyline, which was pretty cool. The trail then took us over to the other side of the ridge where we could see a tower in the distance. Little did we realize that the trail would be taking us to that tower, the Bear Mountain Tower. When we arrived there were a couple professional photographers getting ready to do a shoot. Of course being the shy people that we are, we walked up to them and asked them what was going on. They explained that they are doing a fashion shoot for Vogue Japan. ¢Perfect¢, we said, ¢Where would you like us to stand?¢ Would you believe they just laughed and did not take us up on our offer? We spent some time talking to them, as they asked what we were up to with our backpacks. I don't think they knew much about the AT so we gave them a little bit of an education on the subject. We then left them alone to get ready for their shoot and we continued to look at the views and the sights around Bear Mountain. A little bit later the photographers approached us and asked us if we would like our picture taken. We said ¢Sure!¢ Perhaps we¢ll be on the cover of Vogue Japan after all! They'll email the pictures us. In reality, we were probably just their trial objects to make sure that their lighting and whatever else was all set up properly, but we liked to think we were part of the fashion shoot. Hey, we were certainly dressed for it!Once we were done with our fashion shoot responsibilities, another couple approached us. We explained about our hike and then they asked to take our picture!   This is the third time that complete strangers, once they find out that we are thru-hikers, have asked to take our picture! It's like we're celebrities. It's quite funny actually.Finally, it was time to head down Bear Mountain towards the Trailside Museum and Zoo. We didn't go in the museum but the trail literally goes right through the zoo! We got to see another black bear, some porcupines, a river otter, a gray fox and a red fox, a bunch of reptiles and a bobcat. It was a pretty small zoo but it was cool that it was part of our hike! The zoo also had a huge swimming pool, but it wasn't open yet. Boy did it look inviting. After the zoo, we crossed the Hudson River via the Bear Mountain Bridge, the same bridge that the cars travel on. It didn't look too overly inviting. I guess the one thing of interest was that there were phones at both ends of the bridge, connected directly to the suicide prevention hotline! We didn't pick up the phone! Not yet, at least. The downside of today¢s hike was that it included a lot of cement walking. It was only a 15-mile day, though it seemed to be a hard one on the feet. We're still contemplating whether we need to take a nero or zero to get the feet a little bit more comfortable. Today was not a good indicator of how our feet are really doing because of all the cement walking. Tomorrows hike should be a better indicator. Tonight we're camped in the ballpark field at the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center, i.e. where the monks do their thing. With us is Trapper, the section-hiker from Raleigh who we met the other day. He's not supposed to be here but unfortunately he hiked 7-8 extra miles today due to a wrong turn, and did not make it to his intended destination. On top of the sad news of making a wrong turn, he lost his hiking stick that has been with him for many section hikes all the way from Georgia.   After realizing that he was no longer in the possession of his beloved hiking stick, he decided to name it ¢ Wilson! May you rest in peace, Wilson.We see in the register that Chris was here 3 days ago, so he is still just 3 days ahead of us!Also here is a thru-hiker that we have not met before - The Unknown Hiker, formally known as Jaws. We've seen his name in the registers. He's a 2-time thru-hiker, both southbound. This year he is doing a northbound, but I don¢t think he is having as much fun. The temperatures are much hotter than his southbound hikes, making it much more uncomfortable for him. He started in January. He unfortunately mistimed his trip to the Bear Mountain Post Office and found it closed, causing him to need to hole up in the woods for a day until it opened. But it turned out to be good news for us! Since his food drop was locked up in the Post Office, he had to hit the grocery store and for some reason bought way too much! We scored 3 protein bars, 2 Pop Tarts, mashed potatoes, 6 little beef jerkies, 6-8 other little bars, a package of batteries and 4 packages of oatmeal!   On top of that he ordered pizza at the ball field and we got his leftovers - 3 pieces of pizza!   It was like Christmas for us here - great Trail Magic from one thru-hiker to another. Later a young couple arrived ¢ Pebbles and Sunnyside. Pebbles was the hiker that spotted the bear in camp last night and started yelling ¢Bear in camp!¢ She told us the details of the scary evening. As she was hanging her food bag, she saw something in the brush behind her move. She looked a little harder and at first thought that that it was an elephant, which, of course, didn't make any sense and she knows it. She decided to look a little closer. At this same exact time, the bear also decided to take a better look at the other side of the brush and stood up on its hind legs. So as she got her second look, she found a bear standing on his hind legs looking at her!   And that's when all the commotion started. She still seems pretty shook up about the whole event, understandably! Last year Sunnyside and Pebbles hiked from Georgia to Delaware Water Gap before deciding that they had enough of their thru-hike attempt. This year, they started at Delaware Water Gap and plan on finishing their hike at Katahdin. Pebbles warned us that it will be months and months after our hike before our feet will feel normal again. She guesses that by the end of the hike, most hikers probably have stress fractures in the bones of their feet ¢ let¢s hope not. Sunnyside got his trail name last year during his thru-hike attempt. When he was told that the weather forecast was for 60% chance of rain, he remarked, ¢Great! 40% chance of sun. I¢ll take it!¢It's 7:45, still daylight, with a very comfortable temperature in the 60s. It got close to 80 today. The forecasted high for the next several days is the 70s, which will be nice. However, Saturday is supposed to be rain but other than that, it's looking good. Goodnight from the monk¢s ballpark. Monks play ball??