Date: 2003-07-11
From: Delaware Water Gap

To: Buchanon Mountain
Miles today: 0.0

Mosquitoes are great alarm clocks! We had no problem waking up as soon as we started getting bit. Hall and I went back to the ramada for the continental breakfast that we missed the day before and to confirm the logistics for the day. Mom and Ginna planned to start 17 miles north of us that day and hike 7 miles. That meant on his first day out, Hall had a 24- mile day in front of him.    After we ate, we hopped onto the trail it was another great day for walking but it was hot and humid and a bit rocky. A BIG day for Hall for sure. We caught up to Mom and Ginna about a mile before the shelter and had a final ascent followed by the final descent into the most mosquitoey shelter area I've ever seen. Some guys were tenting down there and they told me as dark was creeping in that the spring was dry. Luckily, I ignored them and found a nice spring (down the blue blaze). I cooked supper and ate and then hung bearbags, not even thinking about the bear boxes installed in the area. The mosquitoes were CRAZY! Hall and I tried to sleep in the shelter but ended up packing up our stuff and going up the hill that we'd just come down for some wind exposure (to keep the mosquitoes at bay). We were finally able to sleep but as soon as it got to be light, they came out again and we were up.   Hall got picked up with mom and Ginna about 4 miles north of the shelter to get mosquito nets, bug spray, and groin lube. He ended up getting some biking shorts instead which worked just as well as the lube. I had a nice walk that day. The woods seemed to be teeming with wildlife. LOTS of orange salamanders, the biggest black bear I've ever seen, and a raccoon who was acting VERY strange--almost sickly. I stopped in Unionville for a hamburger and Hall ran into me in the restaurant/bar/hostel there. There was a pool league tournament going on so it was packed with locals. A good time indeed.    The next day, Hall started a mile in front of medicine man and I and we didn't catch him all day. It was cool though because he ran into strappy who he'd met in Hot Springs. The Mullberries and black cherries were what held MMan and I back. We goarged ourselves. It was wonderful. We stayed at Wayawanda Shelter.    We got somewhat of a late start the next morning because we didn't have all that far to go. The water situation was a little difficult so we decided to hitch into Greenwood Lake NY. We got a ride in the back of a truck immediately and were dropped of in a shopping center with a farmer's market right in the middle. We bought some cheap veggies and began to chomp down on them. While we were there, two ladies came up and started talking to us about what we were doing. One of them mentioned her pot roast that would be ready that evening and the other mentioned her lake house that's great for swimming. SOUNDED GREAT! We went with one of the ladies to her lakehouse (the lake that we'd been drooling over all day as we hiked on the ridge above) and then, after getting an ice-cream from the ice-cream truck, got picked up to go back to have a FABULOUS pot roast dinner. We had potatoes, carrots, roast, more kinds of juice than I ever knew existed, and watermelon-shaped sherbet. They took us back to the trail and we decided that we had some night hiking ahead of us. We made it past the girls and, after talking a little junk, moved on to catch Sprite who had passed us while we were off. We caught him camped in a field by a road and decided to move on still. When we got to Buchanon Mtn. we realized that instead of having 4 more miles to go, we had 9. We decided to get some sleep. That was the hardest night hiking I'd ever done. Hall was being put through it for sure.