Mountains Under Foot

Hi MUFaddicts,
I have updated the journal entries from Hazard’s emails that he’s sent me to date. They said that they were heading out of the City today. I was hoping that Hazard would have caught up to at least through 7/27/09, but I guess they were pressed for time… I’ll be working on the photo gallery tonight for awhile, so check back for new photos. If you haven’t checked out the new video you should it’s hilarious!

*Edited – I added a new gallery for NJ/NY uploading photos for Days 73-75. Plus I added the photos for Day 72 to the PA gallery which completes that gallery. Enjoy!

Happy Trails,

K

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 77: July 25, 2009
Travel:
From: West Mountain Shelter, NY
To: NY 301. Clarence Fahnestock State Park, NY
Beginning: 8:00am
Ending: 9:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 24
b) other – wandering about the zoo, about 1.4 miles to and from Ft. Montgomery for lunch, 1 mile to covered pavilion to sleep.
c) AT Mile Marker – 1410.7 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Beautiful sunny day and hot.
PM: Great day until after 8pm when it started sporadically raining and then later turned to full on rain.
People: Stewball & Otter. All the people grilling, Zookeeper and his wife. Of course Crocstar.
Animals: Too many to name at the Zoo! Basically it was everything we had seen or heard while on the trail.
Money: $6 lunch, $4 snacks, $1328 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: When we awoke Stewball (the man responsible for the Hannah’s Hiking Tips) was already gone. We had one big climb early on to the top of Bear Mountain. which ended up being really easy because most of it is a road walk with only the last bit in the woods. At the top we saw Stewball and Otter. There is also a stone lookout tower that had great views of the surrounding area and a park ranger handed us some granola bars that were apart of a fundraising partnership between NY Parks and Cascadian Farm. Simply go to their website and send them an email about how great NY Parks are and they donate $1 to NY Parks. Too easy! The link is provided on the right side bar. After taking in the views from the top of the mountain we descended down to the Bear Mountain Zoo. The trail actually winds through this local zoo, white blazes and all, which had animals from our entire trip. There was a statue of Walt Whitman, the bear pen, which was actually the lowest physical point on the AT, and many other animals. We made a stop at the information booth and asked them for cardboard so we could make a sign for the lowest point to get our picture with. We spent some time talking with them about our trip, I got some epoxy for my boot (new boots already coming apart..), and got a recommendation to hit Ft. Montgomery for lunch. After getting our picture taken in front of the bear pen with our sign we headed to lunch.

PM: It was a really long road walk to a gas station that sold hot dogs, frozen pizza, ice cream, and such. We all picked up a handful of food and sat out in the sun at a picnic table to eat. I was already feeling pretty slow today and the sun was really draining me. After lunch we headed back to the trail which took us over the Bear Mountain Bridge and up Anthony’s Nose which was a straight uphill climb that did not feel good on a full stomach. After coming down we hit another highway and the Appalachian Market conveniently on the trail and I noticed a pair of familiar packs outside so I went in. I got a drink and some cream savers to keep me going on the trail as I was really fatigued. My
muscles were weak, my energy was low, and it felt like I hadn’t recovered very well from the previous day. After the break I rambled on as the other guys charged ahead. I pretty much walked the rest of the day alone. It started to get dark so I dropped my pack to grab my headlamp and as soon as I put it back on the sky opened up. I dropped my pack again to put my camera away and get my pack cover on but before I could finish it stopped raining. It was going to be a long night. I finally got to the road and headed toward the park. It was a long walk from the trail and I was spent. I found Spoon and Croc at the rangers office waiting for me and I started to make dinner because I was starving. It started to rain again so we just gathered everything in our arms and walked across the street to the covered pavilion. We ate, we fell asleep. Tomorrow we needed to cover 25+ miles to get to the AT station by 6:35pm to get into New York City.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 76: July 24, 2009
Travel:
From: NY 17A (and the Mayor’s place), NY
To: West Mountain Shelter, NY
Beginning: 8:30am
Ending: 9:15pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 24.8
b) other – .6 to shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1386.7 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Sunny and nice all day
PM: Clouds rolled in and brought a really nasty thunderstorm after 9pm.
People: Said goodbye to Dick and crew, saw Lion King, trail magic sponsored by Campmor. I talked to Cat!
Animals: Big rattlesnake.
Money: $0, $1318 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Another early morning with a great breakfast. We got ourselves prepared for our ride back to the trail and then jumped on the computer to check out hostels in NYC. Crocstar sadly didn’t have any interest in going into the city. We had a short delay due to Spoon temporarily misplacing his cash & cards. When we hit the trail Spoon also was feeling pain in his ankle, so we took things slow and easy. He started to feel a lot better and got ahead of me so it was a good time to give Cat a call. We talked for about an hour up and over some mountains and I found a rattlesnake which I had to be told not play with it. I got off the phone just before Highway 17 and where we were told some trail magic would be going down provided by Campmor.

PM: As I strolled down the road looking for everyone, a cacophony of human-made bird sounds warned me to walk down the gravel road to the party. I was greeted by Lion King, Butch, and crew and was handed a cold soda, candy, an apple, and a new pair of Darn Tough socks by the guy from Campmor. We all joked around and had a good time…for a long time. Spoon and I didn’t leave until around 3pm and Crocstar had left about an hour before that. The next section of trail took us up and over a ton of ridges as we headed east against the grain of the mountains. There was one section called the Lemon Squeezer where we dropped down in between two tightly spaced rocks and had to shimmy our way past them and then climb on top of a rock ledge afterwards. This ledge required us to toss our poles up and over the rock and climb up hand-over-hand. I ended up learning that Crocstar had tossed his whole pack over to get across the obstacle. So we mini-rollercoastered all afternoon and into the evening. West Mountain Shelter is listed as having no water, so to be safe I filled my Nalgene and Spoon pumped water for our reservoirs two miles from the shelter at a good source. Then we proceeded to hit water source after source all the way to the shelter up until about .2 miles from the shelter. That last section was not easy and I had to do it with almost 4 liters of water in my pack. But when we got to the shelter there was only Croc sitting outside taking a smoke so it felt good to not have to fight for a spot. Shortly afterwards, Stewball came in looking for space inside the shelter because it sounded like a storm was coming. Now the unique thing about this shelter is it’s unobstructed view of the Hudson river and on clear days NYC. That storm did come and we watched lightning strike the cities in front of us for a long while. We joked that when we got to NYC that it would just be smoldering ash.