Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 75: July 23, 2009
Travel:
From: The Mayor’s place (Unionville, NY) to NY 17A (SOBO) then back
To: The Mayor’s place (Unionville, NY)
Beginning: 8:00am
Ending: 7:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 26.9
b) other -
c) AT Mile Marker – 1361.9 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast again.
PM: Skies got dark and threatening, drizzled for two seconds then the storm blew away.
People: Saw Fancypants & Gozer on the trail, tons of new people at the Mayor’s, Natty & Many Names made it.
Animals: The small furry ones that nibble your food and mosquitoes.
Money: $6 sub, $5 drink & ice cream, $20 resupply. $1318 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Some one’s alarm started going off around 5:30am and seemed to continue to go off every fifteen minutes. I finally rolled out of my bunk around 6:30am and went upstairs for breakfast. All I had to do was sit down at the table and I was served a plate with a cheese omelet, sausage, hash browns, and toast by Bill. After breakfast, Dick drove us to the general store/deli to pick up some delicious subs, then out to 17A for our first slackpack. Slackpacking is when you take everything out of your pack but food and water and get dropped off up the trail to hike back to where you stayed the night before (in this case). We got dropped off 6 miles into NY heading back into NJ and then back onto Unionville, NY. Weird, I know. The first part of the day had us scrambling up huge boulders and rock walls. Thankfully, it hadn’t rained recently or else things would have been really treacherous. Six miles in, we hit the state line identified by paint on the rocks, and saw Fancypants & Gozer. At Wawayanda State Park we indulged in our magnificent deli sandwiches on the picnic area. Next stop on the trail was Vernon, NJ where we were told a great ice cream shop was just down the road from where the trail crosses it. On the way, I ran into Lion King going the other direction and we chatted for a bit and I made sure I knew where the ice cream was by asking him. He truly is a database of AT knowledge.

PM: I had to make a tough decision between small or large and then what flavors to choose. It was all so overwhelming for a simple bum such as myself. I walked away with a trifecta of tastiness: chocolate chip cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, and chocolate. I indulged for a very long time. Then it was time to hoof it back into town (Unionville) and thankfully the trail was about as easy as it comes. Coming back down to Quarry Road I noticed a beautiful newly built home visible from the AT. I tramped into the woods a bit to take a picture and the owner of the home came out onto the porch to greet me. I complimented her on the house and she said they purchased the property because it was next to the AT and they hoped to open a hostel one day. I told her I’d have to come back one day when they’re open. I continued down to the store where Croc and Spoon were waiting. We needed to resupply, so we put together some meals the best we could. As we were checking out, Butch walked in and told us to get in the truck when we were done and he would take us up to the house. He told us the house was packed and there would be 26 people staying there tonight and he wasn’t lying. Most everyone had already eaten so I asked Bill if we could serve ourselves some soup and he replied with, “No! Sit down at the table.” We all complied and soup was laid before us immediately. I can really dig this place. After the newbies watched their video we grabbed the TV and put in the movie “Into the Wild” and watched that until way past our bedtime.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 74: July 22, 2009
Travel:
From: Gren Anderson Shelter, NJ
To: Unionville, NY & the Mayor’s place
Beginning: 8:30am
Ending: 6:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 20.1
b) other – .8 into town
c) AT Mile Marker – 1335.0 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Morning had the sun poke through but it was overcast overall.
PM: Skies cleared up in the afternoon.
People: The Unionville assistant fire chief. The Mayor! aka Dick and his cohorts Bill and Butch.
Animals: Mosquitoes
Money: $0, $1287 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Slow morning probably because of the noise last night or lack of distance we had to go today. The leaders of the group behind the shelter came up to us as we were leaving to apologize for all the noise last night. Apparently, they found out a couple of their tents were broken and blah, blah, blah. We pretty much hiked past group after group of hikers all day, some were singing, and some whispered, “There go real hikers” as we walked by. New Jersey, to me, is by far the most clogged section on the AT. We hiked into High Point State Park which had a Washington Monument-esqe spire that is dedicated to veterans past, present, and future.

PM: We had lunch on top of a rocky outcropping with a decent view. Uneventful afternoon of walking while we searched for the Jim Murray property because it was our only lead to this mysterious Mayor. After walking through a field we hit a gravel road with a sign that said “Well water 100ft” and Crocstar remembered we were supposed to follow that sign to Jim Murray’s place. When we got there, we discovered that this was the location of the famed secret shelter, but had a sign saying it was closed for now. So we were kinda lost as to what to do so we made some phone calls to try and figure out where the Mayor was. I ended up calling my brother Will to ask him to search the Internet for what we needed. He was successful and found the Mayor’s exact address. Bingo. It was only another two miles into town so we headed on down the trail until we hit Quarry Road. From there we flagged down a car and they told us Unionville was just down the street, so we followed the road into town. On our way we stopped a man walking on the opposite side of the street and told him we were looking for “the Mayor”. A big grin spread across his face as he knew exactly who we were looking for and gave us directions to his house. We made a quick stop at the general store for drinks and snacks, but I wanted to get to the Mayor’s for dinner. Once at the Mayor’s we knocked on the door and were greeted by Dick, got the tour and “rules”, then ordered to take a shower before dinner. Dinner was sausage and potatoes in sauerkraut, veggie salad, corn on the cob, and garlic bread. It was truly awesome and filling. To top things off we had watermelon for dessert. One of the rules of the house was that we were required to watch a certain video that was actually pretty inspiring. I can’t tell you what it was about, but I will say “Vincera”. (mom’s note – found out ‘who’ the Mayor is, see mine and Steve’s comments below. You should also check out the YouTube link in Steve’s comment, it’s amazing! Also, I think Hazard does mean “Vincerò!”)

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 73: July 21, 2009
Travel:
From: Mohican Outdoor Center, NJ
To: Gren Anderson Shelter, NJ
Beginning: 8:30am
Ending: 4:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 20.9
b) other – .4 to and from Brink Road shelter, .2 to tonight’s shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1314.9 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Started drizzling the moment we started hiking and only got increasingly heavy as the day wore on.
PM: After lunch things slowed down a bit. Started up again in the evening pretty steady.
People: Crocstar, Cleancut. Two massive groups of kids near the shelter, one of which were yelling and making noise way past hiker bedtime.
Animals: Mosquitoes!
Money: $0, $1287 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Around 4am it started to drizzle so I packed up my stuff, grabbed my sleeping bag, and staggered off to one of the cabins. I figured I could crash under the back porch overhang to get out of the rain and not anger a park ranger, because you have to pay to use the cabins. When I woke up again around 6:30am from mosquitoes eating me alive I was so fed up with the morning that I took my stuff and threw it in the unlocked cabin and went inside to pass out on a cushy couch. I woke up from my nap at 7:30 and needed to find Spoon and Crocstar because they had no idea where I went. Breakfast was had inside the visitor center where we could sit at a folding table and smell the delicious things cooking in the kitchen. As soon as we had everything packed up and ready to step off the front porch it started to drizzle. Awesome. So we walked in the rain all morning as it increasingly became more steady.

PM: We stopped at Brink Road Shelter for lunch, which was the poorest excuse for a shelter I’ve seen in awhile. It was infested with mosquitoes but we stuck around anyway. I went off to find the privy and found a box over a hole with a toilet seat on top in the open woods labeled “The Throne”. The mosquitoes were so bad I came back and motioned us to get as far from this place as possible. It was here that we decided that it might be a good idea to stop short today and walk into Unionville, NY tomorrow to try and find “The Mayor” who we had heard all of these too-good-to-be-true stories. Everywhere we looked while hiking there were large groups of hikers, anyone from Boy Scouts to local campers. The worst part is one of these groups decided it would be cool to camp behind the shelter this evening. They pretty much made as much noise as possible even after we told them to keep it down when they came down the trail. They were yelling at each other apparently until 11pm and Spoon had to tell them to shut up. (Mom’s note – Welcome to New Jersey, son…)

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 72: July 20, 2009
Travel
From: Delaware Water Gap, PA
To: Mohican Outdoor Center, NJ
Beginning: 5:15pm
Ending: 8:45pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 10.4
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 1294.0 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast, thought it might rain. But it didn’t.
PM: Sunny and hot, returned to overcast by evening.
People: Ran into Many Names and Natty on the way out of the hostel. Ran into Prof. Mark as he walked back from mile zero on the Delaware River Bridge officially completing his PA section hike.
Animals: Best Bear sighting yet! Got some pictures. Fast snake colored in red and orange.
Money: $10 for breakfast, $4 for shuttle, $7 for laundry, $17 for resupply. $3 for lunch. $1287 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up super early and decided to leave the bunk room to lay on the pleather couch and listen to the BBC news on NPR. I couldn’t believe how normal it made me feel, since radio and news are so hard to come by in the woods. Once people were awake and moving around, we started looking for shuttle options into the town of Stroudsburg, NJ for laundry and groceries. The best deal was the four dollar ride from the Pack Shack; who were actually more of a river outfitter and had almost nothing in the way of hiker gear. They could not fix my pole. Breakfast was had at the diner and Crocstar once again stole the show with how much food he could accidentally (he didn’t know it was that big) order. The shuttle took us into town shortly after 10am and dropped us off at the outfitter which supposedly had everything, but in fact had nothing. They could not fix my pole, however they did offer to send it back to Leki for me. No thanks, I need my poles. The laundry was just down the street so we got that going and Spoon brought his sleeping bag to get washed as well. An hour of daytime TV later and we headed out to try and find the library.

PM: On the way up Main street we stopped in a music store that was packed with boxes of vinyl records. We had to get out if there fast because there was way too many records I would want to buy. Our shuttle driver said the library was just up 611 (highway) but what he failed to mention was that it was over a mile walk. But we did it anyway and I was able to charge my iPod and get some pictures uploaded while Spoon worked on his journals. No WiFi unfortunately so I couldn’t send my notes. I gave Cat a call, but it was so noisy outside the library and that made it kinda difficult to converse and I had to cut things short because we needed to get groceries. I need more hours in the day! A teleportation device would be handy too. Anyway, we resupplied and called back our ride to pick us up. They seemed surprised we made the trip all the way up to the library. Once back in town we headed back towards the hostel, but not before stopping at the bakery for the best deal in town. A hot dog and a slice of pie for $1.50. I had two… Continuing back toward the hostel we stopped at Edge of the Woods outfitter that actually had everything we needed. They fixed my pole, Crocstar got new Platypuses, and Spoon got a headlamp. Very awesome store that we should have just tried in the first place. When we got back to the hostel we repacked food, filled water, and got out of town. To do that, we had to cross the Delaware River Bridge where we ran into Prof. Mark who had just finished his section hike. We congratulated him and then had the hardest conversation ever standing next to roaring highway. The short hike itself was easy, but the troublesome rocks persisted into Jersey. Just past a no name summit I heard a soft rustle and it was a bear just off the trail in the grass. He looked at me, I looked at him, and he just wandered along without much care in the world down the side of the mountain. He stood up on his hind legs to get one last curious look at me while I snapped pictures then disappeared. Very cool. Not but a hundred feet from there was Croc’s sunglasses which made me think for a split second that the only reason that the bear was so passive was because he already ate Croc… When I got to the campground the guys were waiting on the steps of the visitor center (with camp store) with ice cream waiting for me. After we finished our ice cream, we struggled for a few moments to get across the road and then walked to a campsite to cook dinner and get some sleep.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 71: July 19, 2009
Travel:
From: Delps Trail, PA
To: Delaware Water Gap, PA
Beginning: 8:30am
Ending: 7:15pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 26.2
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 1283.6 cumulative
Weather:
AM & PM: Beautiful. Sunny and blue skies
People: Another day with Crocstar. No one we knew previously at the church hostel.
Animals: Nope.
Money: $15 for dinner, $1246 cumulative
Notes of the day:
AM: Wind blew so hard last night that Croc’s tarp detached from the stakes and was flapping around so he just took it down in the middle of the night. We got a late start and none of us slept well so eating and packing up went slowly. All of us were thirsty and low on water, Spoon was completely out, and it was 6 miles to the next shelter with a good source. There was an alternative spring 2 miles up the trail, but the spring was .6 miles straight down the ridge. It was a easy decision to skip that extra pain and push forward. When we got to the shelter we all hiked down to fill up on water and finally hydrate. I felt a lot better now then when I had woken up this morning. From the shelter it was 5 miles down to the town Wind Gap and our last stop for reliable water and a good place for lunch. I could hear the sounds of PA 23 from miles away and when I got there it was deafening.

PM: The reliable water was from the motel just down the road. They strategically placed a sign notifying patrons that they sold sodas inside. A cold drink was too temping and we all took advantage. I tried a grapefruit soda from a local distributor in Allentown called A-Treat. I was very pleased. All that was left for the day was 15 miles of ridge walking. So Spoon and Crocstar motored ahead and I had a solitary walk for most of the afternoon with the first 6 miles being all rocks. At some point just before Kirkridge Shelter I caught up to Crocstar finishing a smoke break. I felt like I was apart of the tortoise & the hare tale, because I was slowed down by only having one pole and Croc was fast but took breaks. So we hiked together for a couple miles until Croc stopped just before the decent into town for one more smoke. When I got to the Church of the Mountain Hostel Spoon was showered and wandering around, there was Jazz music playing down the street, and hot dogs & lemonade waiting for me. Quick bite and then a hot shower without shampoo because the person that cleaned it out threw it all away. Hikers need soap!!! Still felt good. Then the three of us went down to the diner for chow. We ordered a huge amount of food, Crocstar taking the prize with two bacon cheeseburgers and a Belgian waffle. I had ribs and Spoon had Chicken Parmesan. On top of all that we each had a massive slice of cake. By the time the feast was over it was well after bedtime, so we waddled back to the church and passed out.

Hi MUFaddicts,

I heard from Hazard last night, they’re staying in Brooklyn, NY with a friend of Crockstar. They had a cool tour of the City yesterday and Hazard was able to upload lots of photos. He promised that he would work on his journal entries too.

I am working on posting more photos this morning. I will update to the current journal entries and then pause there.

Hazard’s injury is giving him a bit of pain, but nothing too bad. He needs to take good care of the wound to avoid infection, which is what I am most worried about. “Hazard you’re definitely living up to your trail name!”

More later!

Regards,
K