Date: 2018-07-07
From: Mile 1285.8

To: Campsite at mile 1303.2
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: clear sky

We had a visitor before we set out on the morning. A hiker we have not seen in a long while stopped by our campsite for a chat. He is cool dude!The morning rock scramble was difficult, but still I was glad to be alert and in less pain for it.I only had a few swallows of water left in my bottles when I headed out, but the next shelter and water source was only about three miles away. Before I got to the shelter, I happened upon a cooler and a plastic container. Inside the container there were four cookies. I held my breath as I lifted the lid on the cooler. Score! Gatoraid! I guzzled one. Trail etiquette would dictate that I only take one. The shelter was not far off. I ate a cookie, then a second, leaving two for Cole. Another thru hiker came up behind me and I pointed the cooler out to him. He ate the cookies. Sorry Cole. Then I totally broke the code of etiquette and guzzled another gatoraid. Cole caught up to me at the shelter. I filled the water bottles from a nearby tap. Another hiker arrived, but not a thru hiker. He looked out of place and my ¢weird¢ detector activated. This guy still had store tags hanging off of his backpack, and he asked a lot of questions. I may have come across as a little standoffish. I was trying to be polite and figure him out at the same time, all the while trying to keep as much information to myself as possible until my radar stopped going off. He moved on before too long.The trail was much kinder to my feet today but they still felt beat up from yesterday. We began coming across a lot of day hikers as we approached Delaware Water Gap. Our noses are very sensitive to detergents and deodorant now. The smell was strong all around me. Surely nobody could smell me when they walked in a cloud all those scents.We came across weird hiker dude again. Among all of these day hikers he suddenly seemed to fit in. My radar shut down and we chatted for a while. He told me about the hostel we were near. I said that it would be too early for us to stop for the day.¢But you could have a shower.¢ was his reply.Zing!There goes my theory! I couldn¢t smell him. He didn¢t smell like soap, but he didn¢t smell like a hiker. Well actually, I can¢t smell hikers. We did go to the hostel, but only for water, rest and a washroom. Chill was there, trying to decide if he would spend the night. He was suffering from a shin splint and needed to recuperate. Meanwhile he decided to head down the road for pizza. That sounded great to us so we joined him and the three of us split an extra large pepperoni pizza. Afterwards we stopped in at the outfitters and picked up another pair of darn tough sox for Cole. One of his pairs had mysteriously disappeared. Then we were back on the trail crossing the Delaware River and leaving Pensilvania behind. Thank goodness! Climbing up out of the Gap there were just as many day hikers as there had been descending into it. However, the higher we climbed the the more they thinned out. We had our sights set on one of three campsites that were marked on Guthooks. Cole didn¢t like the first one, so we moved on to the second one. It was occupied by a friendly section hiker named Tyler. There was still room for us and my feet were spent, so we set up the tent and called it a night.