Date: 2007-07-20
From: Vernon, NJ

To: NY 17A
Miles today: 15.3

Today I entered New York, state #9 out of 14 on the trail. The state line was painted on a rock slab in the middle of the trail and I recognized it immediately from photos I had seen on the internet.I had not gotten on to the trail until about 1.00 PM because of having spent the AM food shopping, going to the post office, drying my tent and boots and other gear from the rain yesterday, and making a number of phone calls. This late departure meant that I was going to have to hoof it all afternoon to catch up with the pizza feed that was going to happen this PM at NY 17A, about 15 miles up the trail, by JB's son. The weather was good for hiking; clear, cool and breezy with high temp of 65.The day turned out to be surprisingly challenging with lots of ups and downs. The hike started with a nearly 1,000 foot climb up to the crest of a ridge. The view from the ridge at Pinwheel Vista was excellent looking out over the valleys I had walked the past few days. The remainder of the trail in NJ was a series of small ups and downs crossing from one low ridge to another.Once I crossed the line into NY the trail spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening walking the crest of a rocky ridgeline that paralleled Greenwood Lake, a long lake with development around its entire shoreline. This was fatiguing walking up and down exposed rock slabs tilted at odd angles and jumping from one big boulder to another. There were also a number of steep rocky climbs up rock crevices to gain the ridge crest, only to drop back down the back side of the ridgeline again. Supposedly hikers on this stretch can see buildings on the NYC skyline from this section of trail but I never spotted them.I finely arrived at the route 17A crossing about 7.15 PM but no one was there that I recognized. BlueDog had passed me earlier on the ridge walk and I had caught him again just before the road crossing. We wondered what to do next and where the pizza feed might have gone. Soon we decided to walk 0.2 mile to the nearby creamery and think about it over ice cream. As we were walking Rebel came up behind us. He had just finished a 40 mile day having come all the way from the Murray hostel! He walked thru the entire state of NJ in less than 2 days, having walked nearly all night.When the 3 of us arrived we found that the pizza feed had actually happened in a parking area next to the creamery and everyone from the hostel last night was there. JB's son Jim had brought many pizza's and a 30 pack of beer, but all the pizza was gone by the time we arrived. It was a fun evening gathering in spite of having missed out on the food.Just before dark someone suggested we all move up into the woods and pitch our tents. Quickly a little tent city sprang up near a small observation platform. Thank goodness BlueDog and I had decided to go for ice cream or we would havw missed the gathering altogether. Having walked 15 miles in about 6 hours over rough terrain I was beat and would not have made the last 2 miles to the next shelter, so this impromptu camp gathering was a welcome sight with many good friends to share the evening with. Someone found some firecrackers in their pack and began tossing them off the observation tower after dark, livening things up a bit when one was blown by the wind back onto the platform and exploded in the middle of the hiker pack! I was pretty beat and quickly fell asleep, inspite of the bedlam that lasted well into the night.