Date: 2014-09-28
From: Wildcat Shelter

To: Wawayanda Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: clear sky

I passed a hot dog stand early in the day, unfortunately before it was open. As I headed back into the woods, I found a cooler with "trail magic". There was tortillas and peanut butter, so I made myself a little roll-up and was really tempted to have a beer, but decided not to because I still had a lot of hiking to do.I planned to detour 0.8 miles each way to Greenwood Lake to resupply and use a computer at their library. The trail was not well marked. The intersection was, and there was an arrow that pointed to the woods where there just wasn't a trail. It said 0.1 to the vista, and 0.9 to the town. I wandered through the woods to what looked like a nice overlook and found the trail there. That must have been the "vista".The grocery store was closed, so I got groceries as the convenience store. Then I stopped at CVS for some blister treatment items (I had gotten one random blister) and found they had a better selection of food than the convenience store. Now I know for next time. I also stopped at the hardware store for alcohol fuel, but they didn't sell it by the ounce. I had to buy a quart, filled my bottle, then went back inside. I asked to store clerk to just keep it around for the next hiker that same through looking for some, and she did. I didn't want to waste it and just throw it away and I hadn't seen a "hiker box" anywhere in town.I went to the library, right as they should have opened, but the door was locked. I could see the staff inside, so I knocked. They came to the door and said they didn't open for 12 more minutes. It wasn't until then I realized my watch was wrong. When I got my watch back from my parents with a new battery, I must not have checked to see how accurate it was, or it had gradually acquired error over time. When the library did open, I spent a good deal of time on their computer before hiking out. There was a public restroom at the ball field at the edge of town with hot running water. I hadn't washed my hair in a while, so I stuck my head in the sink and used my all-purpose soap (just regular dish washing liquid I use for everything including camp showers and laundry). I tried not to make a mess and made sure I cleaned up the restroom, leaving it a little better than I found it (wiped the mirror and sink with paper towels). I also left the remainder of the roll of toilet paper I had bought for resupply (I only pack a fraction of a roll at a time) and hiked back up the hill to the trail.When I got all the way back to the AT, I realized why I had missed the trail initially. The sign for the side trail pointed in the wrong direction and the trails intersected at a very narrow angle. I would have had to turn nearly all the way around to have seen it, instead of 90 degrees left where the sign pointed.The trail was rocky and for the first time since Maine, the Appalachian Trail was not always the most well-traveled path. Several of the local trails were more heavily beaten and since the merged and diverged often from the AT, you really had to watch out. Somewhere in NY, I looked up to find the white blazes had turned green and had to backtrack. There was a lot of searching around, but I made it across the NJ border to the next shelter.The only water available was from the state park office building, so I stopped there before arriving at the shelter. They also had a restroom and I delayed there to wash up a bit. It was dark as I left and I immediately banged my knee on a bench before I got my headlamp out.When I arrived at the shelter, there were other hikers there, including one I hadn't seen since I was hiking with my Dad in ME/NH. We talked a bit and I'm not sure how we got on the subject, but we ended up discussing how schools no longer teach how to calculate a square root by hand (without a calculator). One guy knew how and was as eager to teach as I was to learn, so we got out pencil and paper and I got a math lesson. After we had our fun, we all went to bed. They all promised they didn't snore, so I was lazy and just slept in the shelter.