Date: 2003-07-29
From: Sunrise Mountain

To: the bars' household
Miles today: 29.5

When i left Delaware Water Gap I had arranged to arrive at my cousins' house in three days time. I set myself up for a few big days, which turned into a short day, a big day, and a huge day. I had set myself up to do a thirty today which wasn't an enjoyable prospect but I was due to take a couple days off and felt that I needed to make up some time during this section. I was somehow able to get myself up and out of my sleeping bag around dawn. I went along packing my stuff while Bucky lay motionless across the pavillion. I kind of knew that we would be splitting up when I took days off, but it seemed that today was the day. I woke him up and he confirmed to me that he had absolutely no interest in doing a thirty today. I agreed that it was stupid but never the less I was going to do it. We had hiked together all but a few days scattered around since the crew first formed in Georgia. We said an undramatic goodbye as I pledged to catch up after my days off. He went back to sleep and I headed out into the morning dew. I had made the first four miles to the next shelter just as those people were starting to stir. It goes without saying that this was an uncommon role for me. I spent the next few hours dwelling upon my mileage for the day. It wasn't easy to do a thirty mile day and generally you think of that for an hour or so only to realize that the exhausting effort you just put in at your best speed was about a 10th of your total day and after another torturous hour of mental anguish over the miles still ahead, you are two 10ths and thats if you can keep up your pace. I found that this section was much harder than I had anticipated and doing a speed of three miles an hour was near impossible. What became charachteristic of the New Jersey/New York section was very steep, rocky short ups and downs. It was as if the maintainers went out of thier way to find small rocky cliffs to bring the trail over,and over, and over. I really struggled to keep my pace up, luckily there were a couple flat sections where I was able to reclaim some lost time. One such section was a scenic wetlands preserve where the trail went for what seemed like an extremely long time along the edge of a marsh took a 90 degree turn went forward and took another 90 degree turn to double back along half the length of the marsh. This was not the first nor last time I experienced this but this was the most obvious and dissapointing. The part I haven't explained that made this infinitely worse was that this was the center of all earth's mosquitos. Usually in areas of high mosquito activity one can avoid aggravation by continuous movement, in this area nothing could save you. I was practically running this section, while at the same time slapping at the many mosquitos feeding. I tried briefly to stop and take a sip of water or tie my boot and thats when the bloodletting really began, after one second I was swarmed with mosquitoes. There must have been hundreds of mosquitos in my immediate vicinity all trying to find a spot of flesh. It was a living nightmare the mosquitos were all I could see they were blacking out the sun.....well almost. when that trail doubled back all that way I was absolutely furious and was running forward muttering to myself flailing my arms about wildly in all directions at once and still covered in mosquitos. This is no exaggeration, in fact it may have been worse. Luckily I started climbing a hill away from there where the numbers of little vampires thinned out to only a very manageable couple hundred. The last five miles of this long day were very tough on me. By this time my legs, knees and especially feet were in serious pain and each labored step forward was a sheer act of will. This was the last time I would ever attempt to do this big of a day. It just wasn't worth it. I finally reached the road that would lead me to the Bars household and a warm shower, dinner and family. I walked the mile down the road in anguish. I was hurt and couldn't walk straight or far without stopping. I even plopped down on the side of the road a few times to alleviate some of the immense pain my feet were in. I finally was able to hitch a ride the last short stretch, a ride that saved my feet hugely. I was met by Joe and Donna Bars and treated like a king. I soaked in the shower trying to massage feeling back into my feet and told trail stories as I stuffed my face with a delicious dinner. I enjoyed some good conversation before I retired to the most comfortable bed I ever slept in and air conditioning. Thirty miles ain't nothing.