Date: 2009-07-05
From: Depot Hill Road - Trail Mile 750.5

To: Hosner Mtn. Rd. - Trail Mile 757.1
Miles today: 6.6

Day 15[Note: This day's hike is southbound, from Depot Hill Road to Hosner Mtn. Rd.Her journal entry:]Bill & Amy's, slackpack 7 miles. [6.6 mi.]The dilemma recently has been that I needed to get back to NYC to deal with some stuff. Transportation for H and I is often an issue, but we're coming up upon a MetroNorth railroad station that is actually ON the AT. I had planned to hike the 16 miles from B&A's on Sunday and be in NYC on Monday. Then, however, I remembered that H and I had already hiked 10.5 of those miles back in April as a weekend trip. No need to do them again, but no other way to get to the train station or cover the intervening 5.5 miles. Enter B&A's crazy plan to drive hikers back to where they left off before the weekend and then take whomever was left skydiving. Essentially, the choice for Sunday was: try to hike 16 miles, 11 of which for the second time, in hopes of catching the last train into NYC or hitching into the next town where the last train is later on and try to find lodging in NYC for Sunday night, OR have a lazy morning, go skydiving on Sunday afternoon and then Sunday evening be dropped off 7 miles away at the first intersection in the portion that would have overlapped and trail-run (H's favorite) back to B&A's where we left our packs, sleep well again at B&A's and ride to the Tarrytown train station with Bill on his way into work Monday morning to head into NYC. I chose the second option.H was left at B&A's with food, water, and enough line to hang out in the garage loft or outside in the shade. The neighbors aren't close enough to be bothered so he was allowed to howl as much as he wanted. By this time, though, he as pretty comfortable at the house, and not too upset at being left alone (something he needs to get used to anyway).Skydiving was awesome. Bill has his own rig and is a member of a club about 45 minutes away. He jumped alone, but the ready of us did tandem jumps from 13,500 ft with the chute opening around 6,000 ft. Misha, Rabbit, and Sea Monster also jumped. Free fall lasted about 1 minute, and gliding for about 5 minutes. Free fall was interesting - the wind really pushes on you and makes it a little hard to breathe, but you can have a lot of fun using your arms to create resistance and turn around. The gliding was a lot more comfortable, the views were better and the chute responds nicely to your turns. My instructor showed me how to put us into a flat spin - that was Fun! The landing was a lot shallower and softer than I had even hoped. It was a great time.When we got back H was waiting and very happy to see us, though his tail was still hanging down. By this time I'm sure it's the tail that's sore, not anything else, and am glad we're going to NYC so we can stop at the vet to have it checked out. Until then, though, we've got 7 miles to cover. We have a quick snack and then Bill drives us to Depot Hill Road, [41° 34' 16.95" N 73° 40' 49.63" W, 1220 ft], north of the Morgan Stewart shelter. (In April we had hike south from the AT railroad station to this shelter and then back the next day.) We find the trail, put in our orders for a rare burger and leftover hot dogs for dinner, and start running. Did I mention how much H loves trail running? He follows the trail by scent, and is much faster than I am. Normally, though, our packs slow us down to close to the same speed, where he will get about 50 ft away every few minutes and look back waiting for me to catch up. Without packs, he really takes off! Still his separation anxiety makes him very good about waiting for me, and he's learned to slow down at steep sections. By now we've also developed a system of whistles / howls whenever one feels the other is too far away, and rewards of chicken strips always bring him back. We run the first 1.5 miles, mostly uphill, in about 15 minutes, then take 10 minutes to talk with the hikers at the shelter, find our April entry in the shelter register, and make a new entry. Off again, we cover ground rather quickly. The next 2.5 miles fly by, with interruptions to walk at severely rocky places, at steep downhill sections and at road crossings, and to find our way after one mistaken turn in the trail (only about 25 ft off trail and 2 minutes wasted finding the right turn). The last three miles are more hilly and a bit slower. At one point I rolled an ankle because the setting sun cut through the trees and threw a glare on my glasses just as I was placing my foot. I slowed a bit then, not because of the ankle (fine a quarter mile later) but because I didn't want to get hurt through recklessness.We get back to B&A's 1 hour and 40 minutes after Bill dropped us off - a good pace!! - and enjoy Amy's wonderful cooking and a rare burger for dinner. H eats and goes right to sleep, while I stay up with the other hikers/skydivers to watch Fight Club. Amazingly, I make it almost all the way through the movie, and catch a lot more detail than I had the first, second, or even third times. Cool. But it had been a long day and I have to be up really early to catch the train into the city. I join H and we curl up for a couple hours in the garage loft to sleep.41° 32' 28.61" N 73° 45' 10.48" W, 525 ftFor HarveysMom by Harvey's GrandPop