Date: 2009-06-28
From: Wawayanda Shelter - Trail Mile: 826.4

To: Wildcat Shelter - Trail Mile: 814.3
Miles today: 12.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 8[Two photos received today, the one to the left taken at the NJ-NY border, and the "confused deer". (See photo gallery under 6/28/09.)Today's journal entry:]Wildcat Shelter (tenting) in NEW YORK!!!One state down, six to go!! Awesome! We are moving a little slower than planned, but I could care less - a good plan is only good until things start happening, then you need to be flexible. Huge thanks to HarveysGrandPop for rolling with all the changes and maybes I'm throwing at him. Thank you, Dad!! I'm ecstatic that everything is working well and both H and I are healthy (if a bit sore!).Woke up this morning on a rock on a slope and up against the tent wall and fly. Very glad it hadn't rained, or we may have washed down what I had thought of as only a slight incline when I pitched the tent. Oops!! (Had been planning to stay in the shelter itself last night but the mosquitoes came out something fierce. I decided to throw up the tent after all the decent tent space had been taken.)Had CoW with raspberries for breakfast this time - delicious, Saw Man agrees, though he prefers butter flavor - and took the time to make a beef stroganoff freeze-dried meal in resealable bag for lunch. The hikers we seem to be keeping pace with (at least shelter-to-shelter) talked about stopping at the beach at Greenwood Lake and at a pub in town. The 12.1 miles from shelter to shelter left them plenty of time for the 3 mile side trip, but would be a stretch for H and me. We opted to push through and hopefully have time for the half mile side trip to get ice cream at mile 10. I did, however, ask if they could bring me a beer at the shelter if they made it to the pub and back out to the trail tonight. (They didn't - hopefully we'll catch up or read about them in trail registers soon.) Made it out of camp at 8:45 am, and felt like we were making good time. Took a half hour break around 10:30, and was ecstatic to cross the state line (for real, this time - all agree the Unionville, NY portion counts as part of NJ) an hour later.Today was filled with tough scrambles and ridgewalks over giant boulders. Not the most comfortable on the feet! I ended up re-lacing my shoes the runners' way too keep the toes from sliding forward and rubbing. Hopefull that I headed off a blister on the outside of my pinkie toe this way. Looking forward to caluses forming on the soles so I don't feel every stone.Also adjusted shoulder strap height on my pack, now engaging the load-lifters allows me to stand up straighter, to take bigger strides on the flats and keep more balanced on the slopes.Still, was a disappointing day. At 4pm I had hoped we were at 9 miles and only half an hour from the ice cream. Found out we were only at 7 miles, and for the next hour my mantra was: '3 miles to ice cream', then '2 miles to ice cream', etc. How one measures trail miles had a lot to do with my confusion. After one or two days, you keep a running average in your head. 'Ok, over mixed terrain, it takes us approximately one hour to go from here to there, which the guidebook says are two miles apart. We hike approximately two miles per hour.' by yesterday, though, we had been covering slightly more than two miles per hour. BUT yesterday's section was not over mixed terrain but instead many steep hills and scrambles (including a couple where I had to take H's packs), and places where the trail is just strewn with rocks. AND there just weren't many landmarks in the guidebook, so it was hard for me to keep track except by estimation based on our assumed average speed. Now I know a bit better how to refine that estimation.By the way, the ice cream was TOTALLY worth it!!We finally made it to shelter around 7:45 pm. 11 hours on trail with about 3 and a half to four hours of breaks, and covering 12 trail miles. A slow day. At least everyone else agreed, in the quick conversations before bed, that it was a rough one. A common description was that it's 'hard to catch your stride over the rocks'. Even the guidebook says 'the 44 miles between the state line and Bear Mountain are deceptively difficult' - now we know why.Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. We'll continue to go at our own pace and see where we get. If we have to stealth, we will, rather than push to make 14 miles to the next shelter.41° 16' 2.6" N 74° 16' 6.06" W, 1086 ftFor HarveysMom by Harvey's GrandPop