Date: 2017-08-02
From: stealth camp just past highway 9

To: William Brien Memorial Shelter
Miles today: 16.0
Weather: broken clouds

Where are the birds? I¢ve listened closely the last 15 minutes and there has not been a single peep, chirp, or warble. I¢ve been taking close notice because a while ago I wasn¢t at all and I walked a third of a mile off trail. But it¢s 7:00 am, I¢ve climbed a wooded hill and I am hiking along a high ridge. There should be trilling, and calls protesting that I¢ve invaded their space. Still nothing. Has Rachel Carson¢s vision come true? From a silent hill, silent spring.I met a northbounder, a twenty-something young woman. ¢My name is Grade School,¢ she said. ¢How¢d that happen?¢ I asked. She pointed down to the slightly undersized shorts she was wearing. ¢These were my grade-school gym shorts.¢  So, I ask myself, why can¢t I wear my running shorts? (Frodo: Because you are a 65-year-old guy who I hope wants to have at least a LITTLE dignity!) I know, I know, stop beating that dead horse.When I posted that photo of me at the beach yesterday, that skirted the slim margin where a guy of 65 can show his legs. Out here so many of the guys develop calfs (Frodo: calves, maybe?) like blacksmiths or weightlifters. My legs look pedestrian and pale, as if I rode the bus everyday. (Frodo: You have great legs, strong and wiry like a runner.) But not a day goes by that I am not grateful for those legs.With five miles down I emerge on a highway that fronts the Hudson River. It¢s 9:00 am and I meet Pamela and her husband Arnie. They re taking me out for breakfast. Big smiles and big hugs even though I¢m already sweat soaked in the early morning heat. Pamela and I have a deep and unique connection. In December 1983, while engaged in the first known attempt to transit the Pacific Crest Trail in winter, Pamela¢s daughter Jodi and her boyfriend died.  I got to know Pamela as I researched the story and I became a part of it when Frodo and I accompanied Pamela a year ago to lay an engraved stone alongside the trail at Jodi¢s last campsite, near the spot where she died.In the town of Cold Spring we are looking for a restaurant whose name begins with ¢S¢, that Pamela wants to take me to. Older minds are wonderful things. Here¢s a photo of Pamela and me today:  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...After breakfast they took me back to the trailhead and I headed across the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson. A third of the way across Nature started to call loudly and that bridge suddenly seemed a mile long. At the bridge¢s end was the entrance to the zoo and, most thankfully, a bathroom.I continue on the AT and the trail¢s white blazes go all the way through the zoo. These are almost all rescue animals, such as a fox hit by a car. At the bear enclosure we hit the lowest spot on the entire AT ¢ 145 feet. Here¢s a photo of the bear enclosure:  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...Why are there dozens of fat vultures all around the bear? Two of the locals told me that at Halloween the zookeepers thought it would be a good idea to decorate the edge of the bear enclosure with Jack O¢Lanterns. The vultures and the bear ripped them into chunks and now-rotting shreds. Once something ends up in a bear cage, you can¢t easily get it out. The locals were laughing the whole time they told me the story, and they promised to send a photo. After the zoo, the trail climbed out onto Bear Mountain, probably the biggest climb since Mt. Greylock: 1.7 miles and 1300 feet. All afternoon the sky beat like kettledrums, thunder crashing, threatening. At mile 14 I was set to meet NomNom, with whom I had hiked occasionally on the first half of my CDT hike in 2015. She had tried to surprise me last Thursday before Kent, CT. She¢d hiked nine miles but missed me; we hiked faster than expected that day. So today we vowed to keep in close touch by text and phone. The sky opened up in a torrent. It was so, so nice that within minutes Dot, Franky, and I were looking out at it through the windows of NomNom¢s car:  http://www.trailjournals.com/j... It lasted an hour, about the exact time it took to consume NomNom¢s treats and chat about events since I last saw her in early May, when she came to help us host PCT hikers for a few days. So good to see her. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...I am camping near the shelter two miles further along. One of my two bagels from NomNom is already gone. It¢s past 10:00 and I need my sleep.I knew what pink blazing is ¢ when a guy follows a girl up the trail, hoping to catch up with her and meet her. But I had never heard its opposite term [Princess alert] ¢ banana blazing.And on that note, good night.