Date: 2018-07-12
From: Fitzgerald Falls

To: William Brien Memorial Shelter
Miles today: 17.8
Weather: overcast clouds

This morning I asked Cole how he was feeling. He took a long time to answer, but eventually replied ¢I feel like hiking.¢ A better reply may have been ¢I feel like climbing¢ because that is what we did for most of the day.I had my mind set on going 19 miles so that we could get to an overlook where we could see the lights of the New York Sky Line. Once I began all of the rock climbing and realized once again there was a lot of it and I was going very slowly, I had to let go of the idea of seeing the night skyline. Once I was able to let go of the idea, I enjoyed my hike much more.Every day I have to remind myself to only try to do what I can comfortably do and stop pushing for more. It¢s hard. Sometimes I feel like I am missing out. Wouldn¢t it make the day more enjoyable if we could get up there for the view? But, would it be enjoyable if I was in a lot of pain when I arrived or too tired to care about it? I also want to connect with other people more and do some of the interesting things they are doing, but I also want to stop thinking I need to do what others are doing and just do my own thing. It is such a paradox!In the morning as I was hiking along, I came to an abrupt stop. I had been watching the rocks to keep an eye on my footing. The entrails were the first thing that I saw, but my brain did not register what they were until I looked a little higher and saw the head. What on earth would rip a raccoon in half like that? And where did the bottom half go? I turned away quickly but pondered it for a long time. Wouldn¢t a predator prefer the entrails over the furry hind end? It was just strange.The blazes were faded in a lot of places today and sometimes there weren¢t enough of them. At one point I thought I had lost the trail. Guthooks showed that I was right there on it, but I couldn¢t see any blazes. I sat down to wait for Cole. He found the blaze immediately. I had looked in every direction except for one. Up! We had to climb the rocks straight up. How did I neglect to look there? We had been climbing up all day!There was no drinkable water on the trail today. The sources were either dry or stagnant. Thankfully trail angels had left water caches at road crossings along the trail. The first one had plenty of water and we filled up our water bottles. The second and third cache had only empty jugs. We were quite thirsty by the time we reached the next cache and were relieved that it still had some water. Near the end of the day we had to venture a quarter of a mile off trail to a state park in order to get water. I rinsed my shirt out in the bathroom again and put it on wet. It really helps to lower my body temperature when it is so hot outside. There were vending machines at the park too. I cooked our dinner there at a picnic table and we enjoyed overpriced pop, candy and ice cream from the vending machines.The shelter was just four miles away, but it was late in the day. I covered the first three with relatively good speed, but for the last mile my feel felt like they were walking on glass. I am still kicking rocks from time to time and each kick is more painful than the last. Cole went ahead to set up the tent as I laboured with every step. I arrived just as the sun was disappearing beyond the horizon.There were a half dozen other tents set up. We wouldn¢t be alone and perhaps Cole would sleep better. He did inform me before he dozed off that he had lost a camp shoe. Again.