Date: 2022-06-04
From: 17-A parking area

To: Stealth campsite 
Miles today: 3.8
Weather: clear sky

We¢re baaack! We drove up to my brother, Tom¢s, house in Maine and spent a zero with him. The weather was very cool (in the 50¢s) and rainy. (Good thing I packed my fleece on top of my pack for easy access. I was cold!) It was just a misty rain, less than a 1/4¢. Tom said they really need rain here. We sat around and talked and watched a couple movies. We also took Tom out and had him drive our car a few times to get used to it. (Tom¢s youngest car is a 2002 so a car with a fob and everything being electronic is new to him. The ¢lane assist¢ feature, that beeps when you go too close to the painted lane lines, drove him crazy at first. He said when he was taught to drive, the Driver¢s Ed teacher said that if no one else was on the road with you you should ¢use the whole road¢.) Just an easy day to relax and rest up after the long drive to Maine. We got up Sunday a little after 6am. When getting dressed we put on our gaiters. (For those not familiar, a gaiter cinches around your ankle and covers over the opening of your boot to keep trail trash out of your boots as you hike.) The bottom of the gaiter fastens to your boots with velcro. We realized that we hadn¢t glued the matching pieces of Velcro to our new boots! Without it the gaiter doesn¢t stay in place. Luckily Tom had Velcro and epoxy to fasten it! I knew I kept him as my brother for a good reason! He had us fixed up in no time!After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and cereal (oatmeal for Tom, always °) and we were on our way to Warwick, NY. The trip wasn¢t too bad. We ran into a bit of traffic which put us behind. We finally found the Burger King in the town of Warwick and had a meal to power us for the walk ahead. (By the way, Warwick is a cute little town with large, beautiful old homes and cute little restaurants.)We drove to the parking area on 17-A, where we had come off trail before. We loaded up our packs and waved Tom off and then turned to find the trail. The next couple hours were nice trail with a couple awesome rock scrambles. The first rocks were at a point called Eastern Pinnacles. The breeze and view were wonderful.We made it to the Wildcat Shelter, but Schnickles, a thru-hiker, said that Boy Scouts were staying at the shelter. We like Scouts but unfortunately they don¢t understand what ¢hiker midnight¢ is so we decided to walk on. Schnickles mentioned a tent site at the Fitzgerald Falls, coming up, so we decided to head there. After hiking a bit more and then crossing a road, we came to a beautiful cleared woods with lots of tent sites and a stream right next to it. The falls are only .2 away but we don¢t know how many sites are there and we know of at least 2 hikers stopping there so we pitched our tent in the woods. The road noise is a bit much but hopefully will quiet down at nightfall. After a dinner of Instant Breakfast and 3 of Tom¢s famous chocolate chip cookies (Yes, siblings of mine, eat your hearts out!), we filtered some water for breakfast tomorrow and then hit the sack early. Today was a beautiful trail and weather day. We really only hiked a nero (near zero) of 3.8 miles. We didn¢t sleep well last night - nerves and anxious about the hike ahead. Megan and Mackenzie sent us encouraging texts and gifs this morning like ¢You got this!¢ and Star Wars ¢The force is with you. Always¢. They are so goofy!