Date: 2017-12-28
From: Unionville 

To: Route 94
Miles today: 12.8

Day 3As we ran for breakfast before we started our hike it was 6 degrees out. Brrrrr. We had our breakfast at the Mixing Bowl. It is a cute little restaurant with great food and local people who think we are just crazy. We hustled to get our stuff ready. There is a lot more to do with the extreme cold. We heated our soup up. Got our hand warmers started and in place along with our many layers. To start today I had a base layer of cold gear, then a shirt with heat reflective. Then my merino base layer. I¢m not sure they were worn in the right order but oh well. Then outside I had on my shell jacket and my down jacket on top. Usually after I start hiking I will through my down in my pack. Then just put it on when we stop to rest. I also had 3 layers on my bottom. Most definitely I need my chapstick in my pocket for my lips.we had a new shuttle driver named Ken who we found on the section hiker page. He was so nice to volunteer to shuttle us to the trail and the motel will pick us up. Our day of course started out with a decent climb and we were warmed up in no time. We went thru a lot of wooded areas and fields. I will tell you the Unionville area is not very well,marked and we found ourselves wondering often if we were on the trail. As we strolled thru the hills and valleys we came across a lot of board planks to walk on. It was fine but we had to be careful because it was slippery. Eventually we came out to the road and did a really long road walk. Probably our longest so far of the 400 Miles we have done so far. We then turned off into the Wallkill National wildlife refuge. We walked on a really nice flat trail around the marsh lands of the refuge. We really didn¢t see much wildlife because it was so cold. As we came our of the refuge we started the climb up Pochunk mountain. We stopped at the shelter for lunch. Although we were able to get out of the wind, it was still so cold that we couldn¢t have our gloves off for long. We tried to melt the snow to get water because all the creeks were frozen solid. Our burner didn¢t work well. I¢m not sure if it was the cold or the fuel was getting low. We have decided tomorrow we will put hot water in our bottles because all our water we had on us was frozen. Campbell¢s hydration bladder tube was froze solid. But at least we were able to share her water in the bladder. We had to start hiking again. Because we were getting so cold. It finally seemed like we were at the top and then we would go back down just to climb 2 more times. One of the climbs we had a pretty good rock scramble which I wasn¢t expecting. We had to be careful with all the rocks being snow covered. After the mountain we had a few low lying mountain trails. Of course leave it to me to wipe out on an icy patch. But all was good or so I thought. As we continued we finally hit the famous boardwalk area so many talk about. It was a boardwalk that weaved thru the marshlands. This went on about a mile. A nice break from the mountains. We were just coming out thinking we were almost there. I had put my phone inside my clothing because once again it wasn¢t working right in the cold. I had 30% and it died again. A while later when I realized my phone wasn¢t where I put it. I must have lost it when I wiped out. So I ran back as the others slowly followed. Just when I was ready to give up, I came across 3 men. I asked them if they saw it and they had it. I was so relieved. Of course we went a mile or so backtracking out of our way. I know Sidewinder wasn¢t happy. But all was well. We finally came to the stiles to cross into the cow pastures. We could see the road where we were going to be picked up. So we called the motel. They said 5 minutes. We waited and waited for them out in the cold. Now I know this may sound silly after hiking 13 miles and 6.5 hours in the cold. But now we were standing still and getting cold quick. It took the 15-20 minutes for them to come. When we called the second time. We were told he was warming the car up. Great. Just great.