Date: 2007-07-08
From: BRINK ROAD SHELTER

To: HIGH POINT STATE PARK
Miles today: 17.9

From: Brink Road ShelterTo: High Point State ParkToday's Mileage:17.9Total Mileage: 1321.9Today started out very early as the whole camp seemed to be up and moving by 5:30 AM. So Calamity and I got up also. We were walking by 6:45 AM! We did get a little lost again today as we were nearing Culver's Gap. We went straight but the trail made a sharp right and the blaze was on a rock and both of must have missed it. We finally back tracked found the trail and went on our way. It is always worth going back to the last blaze rather than walking on to get even more lost and confused. We arrived at Culver's Gap around 9:00 AM. There were two places to eat at the Gap and we were going to go to the coffee shop, Joe and Go Cafe, even though it said they were not very hiker friendly in the Wingfoot book. But when we got to the bottom of the trail, there was a note from Triple Deuce saying to meet at Gyp's Tavern. Now we were thinking "a tavern at 9:00 AM on a Sunday morning! But we went walking to a very dim bar and on the back deck looking over Lake Kittatinny sat the the four guys from last night and Bucket and Water. Appparenty the guy at the cafe had yelled a few choice words at them and told them to get off his proptery. I feel bad that someone does not like us that much! We dropped our packs and joined them. We ordered sodas, cheeseburger, and ham and cheese sandwiches and sat and enjoyed the lake! Later the ladies that camped with us last night came in also. We finally,after about an hour, left everyone sitting there and CJ and I left to get back on the trail The day went downhill from there. When we left, we knew the water situation was bad, so we had each brought Gatorade and two liters of water. But as the day went on, the terrain got rockier, the weather got hotter, and I got slower. We finally arrived at the Sunrise Mtn. Pavilion and took another long break. There was no water there, but it was very nice to be able to sit and look out over the top of New Jersey. A thru hiker, Cheeseburger, came in and we chatted awhile. We hiked on to Mashipacong Shelter for another break, but it also had no water. We decided to do the 2.9 to the Rutherford Shelter. Half-way there we saw a sign that said water 1200 ft down so we dropped our packs and headed down, as by now we were very thirsty, hot, and tired. When we got to to the bottom, there was an Outward Bound group getting water and they said it was a good source, but when we looked at it the water was not moving and it looked horrible, so up we trudged back up, hotter and more thirsty then when we started down.   We went on to the Rutherford Shelter and when we got to there the trial went straight down .4 miles on sheer, slanting, rocks with only a slight chance of water. We sat for awhile and made the decision to hike on to the High Point State Park Headquarters, where we knew there was a water spigot. We were so tired by the time we got there as it was 7:00 PM and we were exhausted. We sat on a bench and drank water and ate a sandwich Calamity had brought! from Gyp's. We sat and watched police cars as there had been some sort of accident. We thought about what we could do next and decided we would stealth camp in a field behind some bushes across from the headquarters, but first had to wait for the police to leave. So we did just that! We set up our tents for the night and were glad to be there and to be horizontal at last