Date: 2008-05-28
From: Campsite Fitzgerald Falls NY

To: William Brien Memorial Shelter NY
Miles today: 17.8
Weather: clear sky

Day 101 ¢ Wednesday May 28 ¢ William Brien Memorial Shelter NY ¢ Miles Today: 17.8 Total Miles: 1381.6Today was a good day. The rain did not last long last night and by the time we got up, the tent was dry. It was a much, much cooler morning - about 47 degrees - and most of the day was just in the upper 60s and low 70s, complimented with a good breeze and clear skies. The cooler temperature and lack of humidity made it a delightful day for hiking. Today we hiked through the infamous Lemon Squeeze! The Lemon Squeeze is a small, narrow corridor between a series of boulders. It's about 10 yards long and about 2' wide, which is about a centimeter wider than our backpacks. To add to the challenge is the fact that the narrow corridor tilts to the left so we had to walk through the narrow passage leaning to our left, shuffling our feet, and keeping our arms raised up in the air for additional clearance. We had read a whole bunch about it, but it did not live up the expected excitement. It was not a challenge at all to get through, at least for folks our size. It took only a minute or two to pass through. Fun though! However, we loved the adventure just past the Lemon Squeeze ¢ a vertical wall. We¢re quite amazed that we don't recall reading about this vertical wall in any of the journals. All the focus seemed to be on the Lemon Squeeze. The wall was really unique and fun. We basically had a 10¢ rock wall that we had to get up and over. We stood below the rock wall for about 5 minutes scoping out different options. None of them seemed to work. We could not find enough footholds. To the side of the wall was a sign with an arrow that signified a Blue Blaze alternative path. We might have taken it, but it said "Easy Way".   Boy did that derogatory comment egg us on to find a climbing route!   There was no way we wanted to have our names flagged with an asterisk in the 2008 Successful Thru-Hikers Log, signifying that we took the ¢Easy Way¢!We continued to study various climbing routes. When we could not identify a route with enough footholds in the rock, Brakeman brainstormed on a route using the tree that was leaning over the cliff wall. He had an idea on a passable route and decided to try it! The game plan was to use the foothold a couple feet up the wall, grab the tree with his right hand, reach up with his left hand to grab the tree on the other side, next he would swing his left foot a couple feet up the wall, and then swung his entire body and pack out into mid air around the tree and up the other side of the rock wall. If he failed, he would fall 10¢ down onto boulders. Not too soft of a landing for fragile things like skulls and bones. If he succeeded, his name would not have an asterisk beside it in the 2008 Successful Thru-Hiker List.With 2 footholds, one about a couple feet up and the other one several more feet up the wall, and a root to grab with his right hand and a piece of bark a couple inches thick around the other side of the tree to grab with his left hand, he was ready to go. A few droplets of sweat and a few grunts and he conquered the wall!! Success!! Grasshopper hollered up to him:Grasshopper: Do you think I can do it?   Brakeman: Not sure, it is a little tricky. You can go around via the Blue Blaze if you wish.Grasshopper: NO WAY! Spot me as I try to swing around the tree and grab my arm if it looks like I'm beginning to slip. Brakeman: OK.Grasshopper:   Do you think you can heave my pack and me up if I'm beginning to slip?Brakeman: I think so, but not sure. Grasshopper:   Well, let¢s hope so. Here I come!On she goes up the rock wall.   The entire time she is saying "Grab my arm", followed by "DON'T HELP ME", followed by "Grab my arm", and then of course "DON'T HELP ME".   Dang, talk about mixed message!   But she made it UNASSISTED!   So quite an adrenalin rush - it was pretty neat.NOW, A.T. TRAIL MAINTAINERS, QUIT PUTTING UP SIGNS LABELLED "EASY WAY", it's not necessarily good for our safety or our egos!Other than the Lemon Squeeze and the vertical wall, it was a pretty uneventful day. The day was very pretty but we were very treed in. Brakeman is really looking forward to getting above tree line and being able to see views again which, of course, brings on a whole other set of challenges ¢ dangers of being exposed to thunderstorms and to the sun and heat. It's probably one of those things where we're never quite happy with the exact conditions that we have. We had Trail Magic today - about 4 gallons of water at a road junction. Water is a bit scarce in this area and the water that we do find sometimes has a weird yellow color to it. We¢re not quite sure what that's about (tannins?) and we¢re not quite sure if it¢s healthy to drink. When we found the Trail Magic water, we dumped 2 of our bottles of yellow water and refilled with delicious looking and tasting water! A very nice sweet treat that somebody left us. I know the hikers a couple days ago would have really appreciated it because it was blazing hot. Today was cooler and water wasn't quite as important, but it was still very much appreciated. We used the yogi¢ed DEET today and it helped tremendously. Between the netting of some sort that we found on the trail that Brakeman is using as a head net and the bug juice that we yogi¢ed, Brakeman is managing to stay alive. In addition to the mosquitoes that we have been battling for the last numerous days, we are now also battling little black biting flies. Overall, it's not too bad yet. I'm sure it's going to get a whole let worse before we get to Maine! It's 8:00 and it¢s in the 60s. It's very buggy so as soon as we got the camp chores done, we hid in the tent. Tomorrow is a 15+-mile day and it should be a pretty neat day. We're going to walk through Bear Mountain Zoo in New York. The zoo is the lowest elevation point on the entire AT and that part of the trail is also part of the original 1923 AT!   And tomorrow we're going to stay at the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center with the monks. Well, actually we¢ll be camped in the ball field, but perhaps we can visit with some monks. Why am I doing all this talking when Brakeman is sitting over here telling it and I¢m just repeating it? I don't know!!WooHoo ¢ we have under 800 miles left ¢ just 794.6 to go! Over and out for today. We'll check Brakeman into the zoo tomorrow. Stay tuned! Goodnight!