Entering New England

I arrived in Connecticut Saturday, June 11. The trail runs through the northwestern part of the state, which is very rural, mountainous, and scenic. It started to rain shortly after I arrived there and it rained quite heavily for a few hours. My clothes and shoes were drenched, and I was in need of a laundromat anyway, so I looked in my trail guide and noticed that the town of Kent was less than a mile from the trail, and it had a laundromat.

The walk into town was quite scenic, passing by the Kent School, where a few people were practicing Lacrosse on a field. The trail crossed a bridge over the Housatonic River, right by the docks used by the Kent rowing team. Lacrosse and competitive rowing are almost unknown in most of the country, but are popular here.

Housatonic River.

After walking down Kent's remarkably scenic main street I found my way to the laundromat. I was actually surprised that Kent had a laundromat, as it is a very upscale town. It turns out that it is primarily a commercial laundry facility (the Kent School being one of its clients) that does a side business for walk-ins, such as hikers.

There were two other hikers when I arrived there, Dump Truck from NC and King Arthur from PA. The owner of the laundromat (Carly) made it clear to us that she only barely tolerated hikers. She was admonishing Dump Truck for putting his wet pack on a table when I arrived, and one of her employees was berating King Arthur for being in the bathroom too long (we have to use the bathroom to change).

While we were doing our laundry, King Arthur and I sat at some tables outside while Carly relayed her tales of woe concerning hikers to us. She said hikers sometimes put wet, unlaundered items in dryers, and that they sometimes get a little carried away trying to wash ALL of their clothes. She said that she was once in Wisconsin, where she had flown to see a Packers game, when she checked her security camera remotely and saw three male hikers completely naked in her laundromat while washing their clothes. King Arthur and I did our best to explain that these hikers were a minority.

There was an IGA across the street so we stocked up on food while our clothes were busy being laundered. I had some delicious local strawberries, far better than those giant, mutant strawberries from California. I talked with Dump Truck for a while; he's a recently retired community college English professor from NC who bemoaned the declining ability of many high school graduates to read and write with any degree of proficiency.

I spoke with a local at the laundromat who told me to ignore Carly, that she was just ornery. He said that she lives in the laundromat even though she has plenty of money (she had a new $50,000 pickup parked outside). I thought he meant that she spends too much time there, but he pointed to her office and said that she has a bed in there and actually lives there.

So much for Kent. Later in the day I was hiking in a rocky, steep section of Connecticut's mountains when I came across a young woman having a tough time getting her dog up a steep, rocky section. It was a 7 month old mutt with short legs. The dog had a pack with a handle on top, so she would grab the handle, lift him up, and then climb up to join him. He was a very patient dog who looked comical while being carried with his short legs sticking out. She just graduated from college with a history degree, didn't want to go to law school like many of her fellow history majors, so was hiking the trail while deciding what to do next. She seemed to lean toward going back to school to become certified in primary education. Her story seemed to be a typical of many younger people on the trail.  She (Alice) and her dog (Jack) stopped at the next shelter where her friends were waiting, while I kept going.

I ran into the two young Mississippi guys again. I had assumed that they were college students before because they had beards growing that makes them look older, but when I talked with them further they told me they were only 18 and recently out of high school. What a great adventure.

Connecticut is a rather short section of the trail so it only took two days to get through it. I particularly liked a stretch of ran right by the Housatonic River. One thing that struck me was that there were even more stone walls along the trail than I'd seen in New York. Almost all of the surrounding hills had once been largely cleared of trees and replaced with farms. If I remember my history, the abandonment of all those farms coincided with industrialization and westward expansion. I can certainly see why those farm families left for opportunities in the cities or more fertile grounds elsewhere. It must have been a hard scrabble existence in those rock strewn fields.

The fact that the forests had fully reclaimed those former farms without human intervention left me scratching my head over the extremely strict camping rules in states such as MD, NJ, NY, CT, and MA. Only a few decades ago you could camp just about anywhere in those public forests along the trail. Now, you can only camp in designated areas, which are limited in number and high density. It really takes some of the wild out of being in the wilderness. I sometimes stay in those designated areas, but at other times I engage in willful civil disobedience.

The Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts actually start in Connecticut, and I crossed into Massachusetts on Monday, June 12. After some steep mountain sections, the trail went back down to the Housatonic River and crossed a major roadway near Great Barrington, MA. Since I hadn't showered in a while, I spent the night in a motel there after walking three miles into town.

Great Barrington is quite a nice town and is considered a tourist destination because of its proximity to the Berkshire Mountains and a nearby ski area. The young clerk at the Day's Inn told me that Smithsonian Magazine had rated it the best small town in America. An enormous stone wall guards an enormous stone building near the center of town. The informative clerk said it was a school for troubled rich kids.

It was a grueling two days from Great Barrington to Dalton, MA, an old, but scenic mill town. I covered 50 miles in those two days and pushed myself a little too hard. I started developing a pain in my left foot that became so severe that I was wincing and limping at times. Once I got to Dalton I decided that I really needed to take a "zero" day and let my foot rest and heal, so that's what I did.

Besides being grueling and sometimes painful, the hike from Great Barrington to Dalton was very scenic. It passed many streams and ponds. I saw more beaver activity, heard many bullfrogs, and came across my third bear so far on the trail. He didn't see me for a while so I watched him mosey up to his favorite scratching tree and give his claws a workout.

After leaving Dalton yesterday (June 17) the trail eventually led to some marble cliffs overlooking Cheshire, MA. I met "Blaze" who had to take three weeks off the trail in Bear Mountain, NY because of a hairline fracture in his foot. He had been a very fast hiker (faster than me), but was now slowing things down a little. My foot still wasn't 100%  but it seemed to be healing. It's a mild sprain I believe.

The trail went down into the small town of Cheshire and right past an ice cream shop. I bought a cup of chocolate ice cream and joined two other hikers at a picnic table, "Snickers" and "Rain Man." Rain Man had lived in Arlington, VA for a few years (currently in Atlanta) and was an avid bicyclist. We talked about some of the dual use trails around Arlington and the problems with bicyclists trying to share the same busy pathway with walkers and runners. We are both convinced that separate, or at least physically divided pathways  are needed. Another hiker, "Magic," from Dallas, TX showed up at the picnic table with an ice cream cone which plopped onto the table after a few licks. She went inside, got a spoon, and ate it right off of the table.

I camped high on a ridge last night in pine needles. It was a fine campground, even if it wasn't state sanctioned. While eating breakfast a large cow moose walked toward me. When she spied me she moved away a little but then spent several minutes curiously looking at me.  I did not think  that moose lived this far south, but I was only a few miles from Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts at almost 3500 feet. A plaque at Mount Greylock later explained that the 12,000 acre Greylock State Reserve is the only sub-alpine region in the state. Hence the moose.

Trust me. There really is a moose in those trees.

WWII memorial at the top of Mt. Greylock.

I'm currently at a community center in North Adams, MA, charging my phone while typing. Next, I'll resupply at a grocery store and then it's on to Vermont, only four miles from here by trail.

Crossing the Hudson

I left the Church Hostel on Monday, June 6th. I began where I had left the trail, at the beginning of a remarkable one and a half mile long raised boardwalk that passed through a wetlands wildlife sanctuary outside of Vernon. It took ten years to construct using volunteer labor and donated materials. Unlike most of the trail, backpackers are far outnumbered by locals. I came across runners, power walkers, strollers, and dog walkers. I spoke with a woman walking her dog who, in jest, pleaded with me not to reveal that northwest NJ was such a beautiful place to live, lest too many others move there. The boardwalk ends with a wood suspension bridge that spans a creek.

Boardwalk.

View from boardwalk.

After the boardwalk was a very grueling climb to the top of a mountain. They call the climb the stairway to heaven because of the great views on top. I could see well onto New York State, as well as the Vernon ski slopes and the clean-up crew from the hippie fest in the valley below. Before long I was out of NJ and headed for the Hudson River, a little over 35 miles from where the trail leaves New Jersey.  Part of the walk included some very steep and rocky terrain. One section included steel ladder rungs because there was no other way to get up the steep rock face.

Not part of the stairway to heaven, but a stairway, nonetheless.

Toward the end of that very rocky section I spotted a Bear in the middle of the trail, about 70 feet in front of me, nibbling on some vegetation along the edge. It was a fairly large, very black bear. The Bear spied me and began moving down the trail away from me, occasionally glancing back warily. I managed to take a picture of it as it was moving away. After the Bear was out of sight I continued down the trail, mindful that I was walking in the same direction that the bear had retreated to. I never saw the Bear again though; wild bears have little desire to interact with people.

The best view of a Bear.

The final few miles of trail before the Hudson River descend down hundreds of steps from the top of Bear Mountain down to the town of the same name. Bear Mountain State Park encompasses the mountain as well as a large area beside the river and the Bear Mountain Bridge. It includes a number of stone buildings, a skating rink, a lake, a zoo a giant indoor merry-go-round, and more. For some reason, there were dozens of Orthodox Jews visiting the park. I passed by many while making my way to the Zoo, which the trail goes right through. The Zoo features a majestic, healthy looking bald eagle, as well as several unhealthy looking black bears, among other animals.

I passed through a Revolutionary War era fort (Fort Montgomery - captured by the British) while making my way to the little town of Bear Mountain and a small, hiker-friendly motel run by a German immigrant couple. A barbecue restaurant and a bagel place were both within a few hundred yards of the motel, so dinner and breakfast were covered. The motel owner gave me a ride to the bridge the next morning.

The Hudson River.

After crossing the Hudson I still had several days of hiking in New York before passing into Connecticut. I enjoyed the New York section of the trail, both east and west of the Hudson. It included much rocky terrain and passed through many former farms, as evidenced by the remaining stone walls. I saw more beaver activity in NY also, including seeing several rather large felled trees adjacent to beaver lodges. I did not know that beavers routinely gnaw through trees more than a foot in diameter, but they do.

Beaver power.

Beaver art.

New York has a number of nice state parks that the trail ran through, including Harriman, Bear Mountain, and Clarence Fahnestock State Parks. The New York section also featured great delis right near the trail. I was able to enjoy a deli meal for either lunch or dinner just about every day while hiking in New York.

NJ AT is Nice

It's been over 4 decades since I hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey, so I really don't remember much, nor did I have anything to compare it to, but I was very pleasantly surprised by what a nice section of trail it is. I'm not quite out of NJ, but I figured I'd make a short blog entry describing the last few days since I left Pennsylvania. I've been waiting too long between blog posts also, so I'm going to try and post more frequently.

After crossing the Delaware the trail goes through a park along the river that is part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The trail then meanders up a beautiful trail that parallels a trout stream into Worthington State Forest. After reaching a plateau, the trail runs along a ridge for about 10 miles. Since it was a sunny day when I was there, there were great views of both the Delaware Valley and Pennsylvania to the west and the rolling hills and lakes of New Jersey to the east. The forest surrounding the trail was carpeted with either ferns or grass.

I passed Sunfish Pond, which is completely surrounded by hills, is completely undeveloped, and is spring fed from underneath. It's considered one of the seven natural wonders of New Jersey according to a sign I read. Honestly though, Lake Wildwood is bigger, nicer, and surrounded by even higher hills. I came to a rock cairn on top of a mountain with 360 degree views. It was a sunny day so I could see the Delaware River Valley and Pennsylvania to the west and some lakes and rolling hills of New Jersey to the east. It really was quite scenic.  I camped about 13 miles into NJ.

Rock cairn.

View to the East.

View to the West.

It rained hard that night and the next day (Friday, June 3) was drizzly and cloudy.  I had dinner in Culver's Gap, at a place called Gyp's, right on Kittatiny Lake, just 3/10 of a mile from the trail. I was sitting at a table right next to the Lake talking to one of the property owners of Kittatiny Lake. It's a private community with bylaws, etc. They don't allow any motorboats, not even electric trolling motors. He told me that the lake has plenty of trout and is completely fed from the undeveloped hills surrounding it on three sides. Sussex County, NJ really does have some beautiful places besides Lake Wildwood. After dinner I hiked about seven miles before camping.

The next day, the trail went through High Point State Park. The weather cleared and it was good hiking. I passed many old stone walls and many areas that looked like they had once been dairy farms or apple orchards. The trail dipped into New York State for a while and I noticed in my trail guide that the village of Unionville, NY was just a half mile from the trail. Unionville offered free tent camping to AT hikers in its city park, right behind their Village Office (that's what they call their town hall).

I decided to take Unionville up on its camping offer. Two others were already there and two guys from Virginia that I had passed on the trail earlier showed up also. Unionville is a wonderful small town that was a dairy production and distribution center in its heyday. There are lots of old Victorian era houses and buildings. Only three retail establishments exist there now: a pizza place, a bar and grill, and a classic general store/deli, all housed in old buildings. The general store had a large front porch with American flag bunting draped over the rail. The porch had half a dozen chairs out front and electrical outlets inviting hikers to charge their cell phones.

A town official stopped by our tents later and introduced himself. He said that Unionville had once been ambivalent about hikers, but a former mayor led an effort to encourage them to stop in Unionville. He told us that the town now loves hikers and that they significantly impact the three businesses I mentioned above. He said that of the thousands of hikers who have stopped in Unionville only two or three have ever caused problems.

Two of the other hikers and I decided to split a pizza, which we ate in the park Pavilion. It was quite delicious.

It rained on Saturday night, so we all dried our tents off in the pavilion before having delicious breakfast sandwiches at the general store's deli. Everyone was talking about the weather forecast for Sunday, which called for torrential rains and extremely strong winds. It rained heavily for about an hour at around noon, but then tapered off. However, the forecast called for the worst to hit at around 4:00 PM. Most hikers were planning to get off trail to ride it out, so I did too, after hiking only about 10 miles.

I'm currently staying at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in Vernon, NJ, which has been running a hiker hostel for 20 years. For a $10 donation you get a warm, dry place to sleep, a shower, and use of laundry and kitchen facilities. There are at least 10 of us here tonight, a mix of older and younger hikers. The church is centrally located in town and is just a couple of miles from the trail. One of those trail angels stopped and offered me a ride almost as soon as I stepped off the trail and onto Route 517. I wasn't even hitchhiking.

The Episcopal Church hostel isn't staffed, but run on an honor system. Most hikers, being honorable, abide by the rules and put the requested $10 donation into the donation box provided. We were supposed to read their rules (which I did) and complete at least one of the dozen or so housekeeping chores that need to be accomplished daily. Being a rule abider (most of the time), I started on my chores right after I  and put a load of clothes in the washer. I emptied the trash cans and then went to work cleaning and organizing the hiker box, throwing things out that weren't useful to anyone. Just as I would never donate anything to a thrift store that wasn't fully usable, I wouldn't put anything in a hiker box that someone else wouldn't use. Some others push the envelope a little. I threw any food not in original, unopened, unpunctured packaging in the trash. Fuel canisters with almost no fuel went in the trash. A right handed glove with no matching left glove went in the trash. I then found two pairs of underwear, one men's, one women's. I asked the couple from Dallas who were sitting on a sofa if they would ever use underwear from a hiker box. They looked at me funny and then the woman responded "No, I wouldn't." I told them that I wouldn't either and proceeded to toss them in the trash. The woman then said "Wait, don't throw out the sports bra, someone might want it." I hadn't come across a sports bra yet, but I eventually did and it's execution was stayed. When done with my chores I washed my hands.

I was chatting with one of the hikers who I had seen before. He was a Wall Street refugee, burned out from being a bond broker. He was hiking the trail while waiting to go back to Duke (his Alma Mater) in the fall for a Masters and a career change. There were also a couple of polite young college kids from Mississippi who I'd seen a few times before. They were the ones who had passed me, shirtless and in the cold rain, outside of Duncannon, PA.

There were also a few people who weren't hikers, although they had packs. It turns out they were attending a Rainbow Family type of weekend hippie gathering a few miles away. The hostel is for AT hikers only, but we didn't report them. One of them, a young tatted woman, stumbled in, apparently for the third time in the last four days (one night stay only - those pesky rules), stating that she just needed to come for one more night to clear her head. I couldn't help but think that if she hadn't been hanging out with a bunch of people in tie-dyed ponchos she wouldn't be having to clear her head in the first place.

I'll be out of New Jersey for good sometime late tomorrow. It's then on to the Hudson River.

Well, I 'm posting more often, but I still have to work on conciseness I think.

Warm Weather, Rocks and Trail Angels

It's been nine days and 170 miles since I last posted a blog entry and I'm now almost out of Pennsylvania. I took a "zero" day today in Delaware Water Gap, PA (in addition to being a terrain feature it's also the name of a small town directly adjacent to Stroudsburg) to find some new shoes. My old ones that I had purchased in Virginia about 500 miles ago were starting to fall apart. The degradation accelerated when I put them through a washer and dryer in Wind Gap, PA yesterday. I could not order a new pair and have them shipped ahead because trail debris was coming through rather large holes in the mesh. The heel of the left shoe was also coming apart, requiring me to bandage the back of my heel each day to alleviate painful rubbing.

I made some phone calls to try and find a pair of Brooks Cascadia 11 trail runners. They were what I wore for the first 800 miles or so and I didn't want to take a chance on something I had not worn before. The Appalachian Trail is no place to experiment with footwear. I contacted a store that sold shoes and clothes for runners in East Stroudsburg and the clerk said that she had a pair in my size. It was only a mile away from the Super 8 I'm staying at. When I arrived at the store the clerk showed me a photo on the wall; it was a picture of the store's owner on top of Mount Katahdin. She (the owner) had completed a thru hike of the AT a few years ago.

The clerk asked me how I found the time to hike the entire trail. I told her that it had been a pipe dream for 45 years before I really had the time and resources to undertake it. She wants to follow in her boss's footsteps and said that she asks all of the thru hikers who periodically come into the store how they made the dream a reality. She isn't the first person to query me on how I made it to the trail.

When I left Carlisle last Monday after two straight days of rain it was supposed to be clear. It was for most of the day, but the trail was still extremely muddy. I made it to Duncannon, PA, 17 miles away, by early evening, but not until after being thoroughly drenched by a late afternoon thunderstorm that lasted for quite a while. I was passed by several young guys who were hiking in just shorts during the rain, but it was quite cool, so I had my rain jacket on. They were moving fast, so I suppose their body heat kept then warm.

My guide book warned me that the seven mile stretch before Duncannon was extremely rocky, and it was. The infamous Pennsylvania rocks were starting to bare their teeth.

Some sections have large boulders and others are like a minefield, strewn with innumerable sharp, angular rocks. The rocks slow you down considerably and one misstep can end your hike. I kept thinking about a German hiker who was in sight of Mount Katahdin a few years ago when he made a misstep on one of Maine's rocks and broke his leg just above the ankle, thus ending his hike.

Duncannon is a rather economically depressed town located right beside the Susquehanna River. The trail goes right through town and passes right by the Doyle Hotel, a well-known stop for AT hikers. A restaurant and bar are on the first floor and rooms that haven't been updated in more than half a century on the upper floors go for $25 a night. I ate there, and the food was acceptable, but I had no intention of staying there because I had just stayed at a motel in Carlisle and because I'd heard about those infamous rooms with cobwebs, no screens, no AC in summer, buckets strewn about to catch dripping water from leaking plumbing above, no TV, moldy bathrooms, etc. People who stayed there said it should be shut down by health inspectors.

I socialized with the mostly hiker crowd in the restaurant and bar for an hour or two and then hit the trail again, but not before chatting with a guy from Cleveland who was calling it quits. He had only been on the trail for a few weeks, starting in Virginia just south of Harper's Ferry. He had never backpacked before and didn't do much research beforehand. He relayed his tales of woe to me, from accidentally burning his backpack in a campfire, somehow losing half of his tent, having to replace expensive boots that were too small, suffering from hypothermia, etc. He was an optimist though, despite his acceptance of defeat. He vowed to return to the trail when he was better prepared. His trail name was Grass Man, the nickname given to a Sasquatch type creature that he believes inhabits parts of rural Ohio that he once spent time searching for. I didn't press him for details.

I made my way out of Duncannon and crossed the mighty Susquehanna river on a long, tall bridge. By this time it was dark and the trail went up an extremely steep, rocky mountainside on the far side of the river. After I reached the plateau I found a campsite and bedded down for the night.

Pennsylvania continued to be quite rocky, but the weather was improving. Over the next few days I hiked into the evening. There are numerous road crossings and gaps in Pennsylvania that are near towns, so when I arrived at Swatara Gap, about 50 miles north of Carlyle I decided to walk into Lickdale, PA. There was a converted rail-trail that led into town and my guidebook said that there was a truck stop there with a 24 hour McDonald's. By this time on the trail I am becoming so sick of trail food that the idea of a McDonald's breakfast was worth the extra miles. Unfortunately, my usually correct guidebook was wrong. I arrived to the truck stop after midnight and the McDonald's was closed. I had a cup of coffee and a blueberry Tastycake pie and headed back on the rail-trail.

I don't know what the rail-trail builders were thinking, maybe they wanted to stress the rail theme, but instead of using fine gravel which is suitable for walkers, runners and bikers they used larger rocks, almost as large as the type you find railroad ties bedded on. It made for very uncomfortable walking and I was glad when I returned to the AT. So much for Lickdale. BTW, Lickdale was originally named Union Forge, but was renamed in the early 19th century after a patron of the town, James Lick. I'd change it back to Union Forge. Much classier.

I was hoping to get to Wind Gap, PA by Saturday morning, the 28th of May. Jackie had mailed me a few items I requested to general delivery at the Post Office there. I still had a long way to go though and would have had to average 30 miles a day to get there in time. With the trail becoming so rocky and my shoes beginning to fail me, I knew I wouldn't be able get there in time. Since the Post Office wouldn't be open again until the following Tuesday because of the Memorial Day long weekend I decided to take a break in Pine Grove, PA to kill some time and rest my feet.

Pine Grove was almost five miles from the trail, but I walked there as the road was lightly traveled and had a good shoulder. It is a small town, but it had a decent motel and a few stores. There was a Dollar General store right next to the motel, and I had discovered earlier that these stores carried quite a variety of food items and are ideal for resupplying a hiker. The road into town was all downhill, so when I returned to the trail it was a strenuous two-hour walk. No rocks though.

The next 90 miles to Wind Gap were relatively uneventful. Pennsylvania was becoming a little monotonous, with thick forests, lots of rocks and very few views. I did see plenty of snakes though, since the weather has finally changed to sunny and warm. I did veer off trail for a mile and a half with a fellow hiker from NJ to Palmerton, PA for dinner at a local pub on Monday. The food tasted great but I think it gave me some mild food poisoning as my digestive system was not happy for the next 18 hours, starting shortly after I left Palmerton.

Palmerton has several beautiful onion-domed churches that you see in some of the old Pennsylvania mining towns. Eastern Europeans worked in the mines in large numbers beginning in the late 19th century and they brought their Orthodox church architecture with them. Palmerton was a zinc mining and smelting hub for almost 100 years.

I would be remiss if I did not mention trail angels. They are people who provide "trail magic" along the trail and help hikers out by giving them rides to/from towns, etc. Sometimes they are former AT thru hikers and sometimes not. Just in the last week I have been the recipient of the kindness of trail angels a few times. One left a cooler filled with ice cold cans of soda and iced tea near a road crossing (just far enough away not to be seen from the road). Another left several gallon jugs of water in the middle of a long stretch of trail with no water supply. I appreciated both of those gestures. When I was getting ready to leave the pub in Palmerton a young guy and his wife who had been eating there offered us (me and the guy from NJ, trail name Digger) a ride back to the trail. I accepted, but Digger was going to pitch his tent on the lawn behind the pub, courtesy of the owner, since there was no place to stay in Palmerton and he wasn't a night-hiking kind of hiker.

The guy who gave me a ride (I didn't get his name) told me that he and some others like to help hikers out whenever they can. They appreciate hikers coming town, but there is a rift between those who appreciate hikers in Palmerton and those who don't. Apparently Palmerton used to permit hikers to camp in a large park in the center of town, shower at the fire station, etc. However, a few years ago a few stupid hikers caused some vandalism and a few others were arrested for public drunkenness, so the welcome mat was taken away. It's too bad that a small minority of bad eggs can cause that to happen. Trail towns vary widely. Some, like Hot Springs, NC, Damascas, VA and others have developed a symbiotic relationship with hikers. Others have not.

When I arrived at Wind Gap on the morning of May 31st the Post Office wasn't open yet, so I walked another mile to a laundromat. I washed my clothes and put my down sleeping bag in a front loader. It was the first time I had washed the bag since I started the trail. I had the bright idea of washing my trail runners also, since they had accumulated plenty of fine dirt. I also wanted to put them in the dryer with my down bag since it would accelerate drying of the bag. The acceleration part worked, but as I mentioned above, the dryer caused quite a bit of damage to the shoes.

I was going to spend the night in Wind Gap since I hadn't showered in over four days, but the lodging prospects were quite dodgy. I pushed on to Delaware Water Gap, 16 miles away, arriving just before midnight. I had made a reservation at the Super 8 which was only a few miles away, but since it was so late I called a cab. It was only $10, which I thought was quite reasonable.

I am very much looking forward to crossing the I-80 bridge to NJ tomorrow while marveling over that massive, slanted chunk of mountain on the NJ side. I'll then hike up to Sunfish Pond, which I haven't seen since I camped there in a canvas tent as an 11 or 12 year old Boy Scout. A couple I ran into yesterday on the trail told me that it was spring fed from underneath and that the water was clean enough to drink (I'll still filter it).

Goodbye Pennsylvania.