Stratton Mountain

I hit Stratton Mountain in the afternoon today. At 3,936 feet, it's the highest peak since Harper's Ferry.

It's a gradual climb to the top, and then there's a caretaker - and older lady - who greets you, and you climb to the top of a fire tower to get a good look around.














[sun and foliage in Vermont's Green Mountains, July 27, 2009]














[the view to the south includes the caretaker's cabin and probably Glastenbury Mtn.]

Day 48: Vermont is awesome

Vermont is such a friendly place to hikers. I could never imagine that hitching rides could be so easy before I got here. And before this week, I don't think I've ever hitched a ride by mystelf.

Sunday was my first solo hitch. After leaving Chris and Arla's, I walked up Bennington's main street. Once I stuck my thumb out, the fourth car - a lightweight pickup - pulled over. A guy in his 30's was driving and gestured for me to get in, so I heaved my pack into the truck bed, got in and we were off. He started talking immediately. He was on his way to visit his mom when he saw me. In fact, he said, he had given five hikers rides in 10 days.

At the trail head, he gave me a beer and a Coke for the road.

Sweet way to start the day, man.

On the trail I got to Glastenbury Mountain, elevation 3,748 feet, my tallest yet. It had a fire tower from which one can view the next day's challenge, Stratton Mountain, elev. 3,936 feet.

But there was a crowd of people who were obviously not hikers gathered around the tower. I entered reporter mode and got to the bottom of it: They were scattering the ashes of a friend who loved cross-country skiing and hiking on the mountain. It was his backyard, someone said. The man had died at age 48 of cancer.


















[group of people climbing the Glastenbury Mtn. fire tower to scatter the ashes of the recently deceased, July 26, 2009]

The man's brother poured some Kentucky bourbon for me and another hiker when he poured some for himself and one of the deceased's friends. All in all, the mood was festive rather than somber. People were laughing and getting into conversations.

Then I went up the tower. It was windy at the top. I looked around at the green rolling hills.














It was another 10 miles to the shelter were I stayed after a 19 mile day.

Update: Saturday, July 25

My next day's hike will take me to the point where I will have hiked 600 miles from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia since June 10. That's 27 percent of the entire 2,178 miles of the Appalachian Trail. I will have just 560 or so miles [*sniff*] to go 'til Maine!

I'm taking my time through Vermont [and probably through New Hampshire and Maine, too] because I'd like to savor the trail. I've never been to Vermont or Maine before this trip. New Hampshire I've only been to when I drove to Manchester and out in a day for a job interview [that sucked] in 2006.

I will be in Rutland, VT 05701 this Friday and Saturday. That's 90 miles in 6 days; no problem.

For the rest of the day, it's Saturday, it's summer, it's all good :)

Hope your day is good, too!

-Ink

Days 45 and 46/July 24 and 25: Hangin' in B-ton

I'm at the house of Chris and Arla [don't know their last name] in downtown Bennington, Vermont. They call it "The Vortex" for its ability to suck in hikers. Seriously, though, the people along the trail who host hikers for free continue to exceed my expectations.

It's an artists' home in an artists' town. So what better way to spend a Friday afternoon than jamming?














[Kog drums while I try to find the groove on bass, July 24, 2009]

Here is the building behind the house where the hikers dwell. Inside there's a billiards table, darts, chess etc.














[From left: Chris, Kog, Ducky, Chance and Comb, July 24, 2009]

Last night we had ourselves a cookout. Chance and Ducky went simple: Pierogies and bratwursts with veggies. I went big: Grilled salmon steaks.














[From left: Comb, Chance, a southbounder I think named Bacon, Ducky]

Day 44/July 23: Hiker party in Manchester, VT

We got there.

Chance and I hitched a ride from the intersection of the AT and VT Route 9 5 miles into Bennington and caught the 3:10 p.m. bus to Manchester.

It was on then.














[Rented Enterprise van full of hikers going from downtown Manchester, VT. to Rainman's house, July 23, 2009]

I saw hikers I'd never met before, but whose trail register entries I've been reading forever. Ex: "Oh, you're Holmes and Watson!" I said. And I saw hikers again that I hadn't seen in like weeks.

We had movies, a few beers and lots of food.














And Pusher and Couscous reminisced about their time on NPR. Both have gotten tired of signing autographs on the trail :)














Then Rainman, Ahab and Ahab's mom gave speeches. Then we watched Superbad. And then I crashed in the baement.

Hiking scenes

I camped out at the Seth Warner shelter in Vermont on Wednesday night, along with Kog, Chance, Baltimore Andy, Leon and Halifax, a couple other thru-hikers and some hikers of Vermont's Long Trail who had just started.

One of the Long Trail hikers spotted a bear while setting up his tent. We all rushed over to see it, but by the time we got there, it had gone. Halifax alerted, though, which means it was definitely in the area.

Bears seen: Two and a whiff of one.

The next day I set out early with Chance, Leon and Halifax, bound for Bennington, VT and the party in Manchester.

We passed by a neat lake. The water poured over its edges, at about the level of our waists, while we trod on a boardwalk next to it:














We took a break at the next shelter.














[Chance, Leon and Halifax, the Congdon Shelter, Vermont, July 23, 2009]

p.s. thanks, KM, for the decorative letter! It's great to hear from folks back in the world!

p.p.s. everybody loved the homemade trail cookies, Mom. They disappeared fast!

Days 42 and 43/July 21 and 22: Reaching into the hiker's bag o' tricks

When I arrived at Levardi's, Chance told me about the scheme he had to get to Ahab and Rainman's huge hiker party near Manchester, VT scheduled for July 22 and 23.

That would be a party that was scheduled to start in two days more than 60 miles away.

The invite to the party had been extended to the entire thru-hiker community as long ago as Graymoor. It sounded cool. Ahab and Rainman are cool guys. Ahab wears a hat that looks like the hats that Asians wear while picking rice and won first place in the Trail Days talent show. I hiked a few miles with Rainman in Jersey.

A few of us later did the math in Kent: 185 miles in 8 days. No way.

But Chance was determined, and had a plan. Getting to Manchester Center would involve slackpacking 17 miles back to Dalton from the summit of Mt. Greylock [elev. 3,491 ft.] on Tuesday, then hiking 25 miles over the next one or two days from the summit to Bennington and getting a bus from there to Manchester. We would bus back to Bennington after the party. Finally, Rainman [the party would be at his house] had assured Chance that he would send somebody to drive us the last 6 miles from the town to the party.

I was in. It beat zeroing in Dalton.

Levardi drove us up to Greylock on Tuesday, and we hiked south, with daypacks. It rained all day. I was soaked head to toe. At Cheshire, a trail town, we had some food. The bicycle trail looked awfully tempting, compared to the steep climb and long slog on the trail. So we blue-blazed it, hiking about 8 miles on hardtop in the rain.

It killed my feet.

And the next day, when Levardi drove us back to Greylock, the road to the summit was closed. No go. It was almost 7 miles from the gate to the top.

So we skipped the Greylock descent, or about 6 miles of the AT, and hiked from North Adams, Mass. to the first shelter in Vermont, the Seth Warner. Along the way I started seeing hikers who had previously been assuredly ahead of me: Leon and Halifax, MD3.

I'm hoping this means I've gotten slackpacking and blue-blazing and yellow-blazing out of my system, and all in a two-day shot.

Most hikers I've met at some point do at least the slackpacking bit during a thru-hike. A purist hiker doesn't do any of them, but there aren't many purists out here. An ultra-purist is a hiker who feels compelled to pass by every single white blaze from Georgian to Maine. I haven't met any of those.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy gives 2,000-miler recognition based on the honor system; slackpacking is technically allowed, while the organization recognizes blue-blazing on an emergency basis.

As for those 6 lost miles, I could go back and do them later or do the approach trail to Springer Mountain in Georgia [the trail's start] and bank it, or bank some other miles somewhere.

It's all part of the journey.

New trail terms

To pink blaze: To arrange or schedule your hike for a girl. As in, doing a string of 20-mile days to get to a girl, or to zero in a town where you ordinarily wouldn't to hang out with a girl.

To blue blaze: To take side trails instead of the white-blazed AT and count it as done AT miles.

[Previous trail terms here and here.]

Day 41/July 20: Yeah, life is good

In my previous post, I wrote about setting out from Tyringham, Mass. with the intention of reaching Dalton, Mass. in a day's hike. I also wrote about being disappointed at still not having tunes and about being weighed down by extra water, my water filter having quit.

I forgot to mention that I was wearing boots that had been wet for two days and clothes that hadn't been washed since Kent, Conn., some 70 miles earlier.

Finally, I didn't write the bit about Dalton being 28.7 trail miles from Tyringham.

So there you go.

[Lecture alert!]

When you set out to do a 29-mile day, as I had done just once before, you need to be A] highly motivated.

Check. More than fixing all the discomforts listed above, I was driven by my desire to catch up with the hikers I'd lost track of when I slowed down in Connecticut.

B] You need to forget about cooking meals, visiting shelters that are more than a few yards off the trail or swimming/taking in vistas, etc.

No problem. A combination of protein, fat and sugar two or so times in the day should suffice to fuel the human engine. I would do that with peanut butter, Pop Tarts, pepperoni and sharp cheddar cheese.

And, C], you need to just accept the fact that something is going to go wrong. No one hikes that far through the woods in one day and gets through it without a hiccup.

I passed by two trail magics - a box and a cooler - that had long ago been depleted. When I reached the first shelter, the October Mountain lean-to, a group of kids peppered me and another section hiker with questions while I ate some very basic food and checked the trail register. Pretty funny. Then one smart aleck wished me good luck with my "hiking sticks" on my way out.

The section hiker, a southbounder, told me that the remaining 12 or so miles were "cake." He also told me I'd be running into some sweet trail magic halfway to Dalton. I also read in the register that Pusher, a hiker I've met several times, had done virtually the same hike days before. After visiting the shelter, I was refreshed, and I hiked fast over the next 6 miles.

The trail was cake, and the trail magic was there. The sodas were ice cold and the orange things had little packets of Fritos, Oreos, Doritos etc. just waiting for me to eat.














After that came the hiccup, and it came in two: I developed a sudden and very aggravating chafing problem as I walked. Then, just a few miles outside of town, I could see the town lights but the trail went up, up and down where I thought - because my AT companion led me to believe so - there would be only down. It was very dark all of a sudden, so it was just me and my headlamp.

And these guys...














Two baby deer peering at me from either side of a narrow tree. I took my time in identifying them because I didn't want to rush right into a pair of bear cubs. The deer remained still and absolutely silent. I've since been told that adult deer leave their young in a spot while getting food. The young deer are scentless, and undetectable by predators, so that's their survival strategy.

I walked into Dalton not terribly late and made it to the home of Tom Levardi, a man who has for years hosted hikers free of charge at his Depot St. home. Outside in his yard I saw old trekking poles lining the walk - "Must be the place," I thought. The front door was open; only the screen door was closed.

Tom invited me in after I stashed my pack and boots among the others on the porch, and in the living room I found several hikers I was very glad to see: Col. Mustard, Chance and Mississippi, and a hiker named Lisa and one I hadn't met named Comb.

I took a shower and Tom dished me out some ice cream. Damn, hiking the Appalachian Trail wouldn't be the same without the trail angels.

It has been a humbling experience to find such people, and to exist as a wanderer among other wanderers. Whatever hardships the trail throws at me, I can look on moments like this one and feel blessed.

Day 40/July 19: Sometimes, the trail eats you

My Sunday of July 19 started nice and slow. I had the cherriest camp spot at which to wake up. Since I was only planning to hike 13 miles, I made oatmeal and dried out my clothes in the sun.

While hiking, my water bladder ran dry, as it does every day I hike, so I got out my filter at a stream and went to work. This time, there was a problem. My filter essentially quit, which it's not supposed to do until well after I finish the northern portion of the entire trail.

A little instruction sheet in the filter's carrying case gives instructions for cleaning the filter canister: Just flip two valves and let it flow in reverse. I worked on it for 30 minutes, gave up and hiked on, then worked on it for 30 minutes more.

No dice. Instead of jetting out of the filter at 3 liters per minute, full of bubbles, the water trickled out and kept the stream's color.
Instantly, I was transformed from a hiker with a range as long as my food lasts to a hiker with the range of a day hiker. It was crushing.

I reached Tyringham, Massachusetts in the late afternoon, where I needed to be on Monday to pick up a package. I had ordered myself a Sony Walkman radio in Salisbury to be sent there.

The town had the PO, a B & B and nothing else - not even a gas station, and I was low on food. Thankfully, I met a hiker named Hitch - from Chicago, doing Damascus, Va. to Maine - who was staying at the B & B and who had already arranged for the owner of the B & B to drive him to the bigger town of Lee nearby.

So we had dinner at Arizona Pizza, and then I resupplied for the short run at Price Chopper. We waited for our cab at a sports bar that had a golf channel on and served a beer with the masculine-sounding name of Steel Rail.

Back in Tyringham, sometime after 9 p.m., I set up my tent literally behind the post office. I woke up sometime very early, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I packed everything up at 6 a.m. and waited the three hours until the post office opened. It was at about 8 a.m. that a crew from Town Hall took a backhoe to the area where my tent had been earlier, so I'm glad I didn't wake up to that hassle.














And I found out my radio wasn't even there when post office opened.

At that point, I was like, "I'm getting to Dalton [the next trail town] even if it kills me." To address my water situache, I packed 208 ounces, or 13 pounds [!!!], of water and headed back to the hills, hoping for some good luck...

Pack flare

Remember that lure I was telling you about from the Housatonic River, the one I added to my pack in Connecticut to commemorate my awesome swim? Here it is:















This is now going to be a regular feature on this blog. Pack flare is a ubiquitous feature of the AT. Almost everyone has something to make his pack stand out. More pictures to come!

July 18: The joy of tenting

Now that mosquitos have become a mainstay on the Appalachian Trail, descending in swarms whenever you stop to filter water and making shelter sleep all but impossible, I have come to love sleeping in my tent.

No bugs can get in. I have plenty of room. I don't have to deal with snorers, as happens pretty often in shelters, and I pick my own spot. I can also stay up to read, write, play sudoku, whatever, without bothering others.

After 14.4 miles from The Hemlocks lean-to to the Tom Leonard lean-to, I was too beat and too wet-footed to feel like hiking another 6 miles with the five girls who make up the Packadivas and the Condiments, so I set up shop alone.

It was good to get in a long evening. It gave me a chance to dry out some laundry, properly hang a bear bag and cook. I even started a fire - only my second so far - and admired the view.














[My setup and the mountains in southwestern Mass., July 18]

Day 38/July 17: The three mountains

I left Salisbury, CT after noon with Early Bear and Lil Dipper and got up 1,200 feet in elevation to Bear Mountain, which is the highest point on the AT in Connecticut and only .7 miles from the Massachusetts state line.


















[Me at the top of Bear Mountain, in Connecticut, July 17, 2009]

Massachusetts greeted me with an unending buffet of my least favorite hiking ground: The steep, slippery rock which must be descended:














After that I summitted Race Mountain [elev. 2,365 ft] and Mt. Everett [2,602 ft]. It was the first day perhaps of my whole trip to that point where the trail felt mountainous. Mt. Everett boasted a 360 degree view because of the low vegetation:














After a wet 14.1 mile hike I slept in The Hemlocks lean-to [New England way of saying "shelter"]. I got there late, at about 8 p.m., and everybody was in bed with the lights out while I ate dinner [tortilla + pepperoni + cheese + sun dried tomatoes] and read the trail register on my top bunk. Normally lights out is at about 9 p.m., but it was all good.

July 17: To Mass. or die

So I didn't make it out of Salisbury yesterday. However, the $30 I spent to split a room at the White Hart Inn turned out to be the smartest $30 I've spent this entire trip.

A murderous storm that dumped rain in buckets, felled trees, dropped lightning all over the place [with the loudest thunder I've heard in years] and pelted earth with hail struck the area at about 7:30 p.m. It will be interesting to hear, over the next few days, how all of the hikers stuck in the woods got through that.

I spent it on the porch of the inn along with Early Bear, Lil Dipper and Matchstick. Early Bear did some guy science and tested out the force of the hail:




Now I'm off to Massachusetts and I'll be hustling to get to Vermont, where greener pastures lie.

Me like mail

Did I mention I love getting mail? No?

I do.

Thanks to Mom for the big box o' resupply.
Thanks to Grandma for the nice letter.
And thanks to LP for the new shorts, sweets and cartoons.

Keep it coming! Walking out of the PO with some love is a major uplift.

I'll be working on my postcards. Really, I haven't found many along the way worth sending, but there will be some coming up I'm sure.

-Jeremy

Replay Day 35: Keeping pace

I touched on July 14 earlier, when I talked about keeping pace with some faster hikers.

I didn't leave Kent until about 11:30 a.m. [trail towns tend to suck you in; I'm still in Salisbury [library] and it's after 10:30 a.m.].

After lunch at the top of the climb out of Kent, I met up with Trigger, Baltimore Andy [who apparently hangs out at Nola, the Frederick cafe where I go sometimes multiple times a day, about once a week. Small world!] and Blessed, who I hadn't met before but who is a 29-year-old youth pastor.

We came to a part of the trail where the Housatonic River meets a narrow sandy beach between the trees only a step away. Blessed did his best to convince us to go swimming, but Trigger and Andy weren't up for it and I was hesitant. The water
by the bank was still but a rapid current, about 20 feet wide, coursed through the middle, and there was no telling how deep that part was. Blessed jumped straight in and rode the current.

After a bit I waded in. My feet sank in the muck and I saw crayfish all over the bottom. I crouched on the rocks at the current's edge and eased myself in. The current whisked me downriver until I stroked out at an eddy, about 40 yards away. It was like a water ride. I went back for more.

Blessed found a couple of severed fishing lures meanwhile and kept one for himself and gave the other one to me. Now it's on my pack as flare, like a green, dangling badge [with a hook - I've already punctured my thumb once] that says, "I swam in the Housatonic"]. Picture of that later.

The rest of the day felt like soccer conditioning. We hit what we estimated was a 3 mph pace straight up the next hill and sustained it for the duration of several hundred feet of up. Repeat twice, and Blessed was literally wringing sweat out of his shirt. I'm sure I could have done the same with my bandanna, which I wore Rambo-style to keep the waterfall of eyebrow sweat from getting to me.

Camp: Caesar Brook Campsite, in tent.
Dinner: Noodles + hot dog + hot habanero cheese.
Stream bath? Yes! With Dr. Bronner's. Was cold.

Privy example No. 1

Using the restroom in the woods isn't so bad. It's how the old timers did it: In outhouses.

On the trail, they're called "privies," and almost every shelter has one.

Some are less private than others:














This is the privy at Caesar Brook Campsite, where a large number of hikers stayed Tuesday night. This privy was about 50 feet away from the camping area.

Always pack your own tp, and bring Germ-X waterless hand sanitizer.

New trail term

Nero = near zero

I'm counting the .3 miles I hiked on Monday into Kent as a nero.

Update: Thursday, July 16

So the miles in my thru-hikers' companion must be off, or else I hiked through a time warp, because otherwise I hiked 7.9 miles in like less than 3 hours. And that includes 965 feet of climb.

I left Falls Village, Conn. after 8:30 a.m. and took a 30 mins+ swim break at the Great Falls and was soon joined by the Condiments, the Pachadivas and the Georgia Girls, all of whom plus myself camped behind a cafe in Falls Village the night before.














The swim was my second in the Housatonic River, which is now my favorite river that I've encountered on the AT so far.

Now I'm in Salisbury and considering hiking the last 7 miles of Connecticut just to get it over with. It isn't much of a trail town, and not many hikers are here.

I'm enjoying looking at the beautiful New England landscapes so far.

Kent; So long, NY; Salty Dog

I am in Kent, Connecticut. It's a pricy little nook of a town in the western part of the state.

Last night a group of hikers including me camped out in a little yard abutting the local Episcopal church, with the church's blessing.

I'm going to try to keep pace with Trigger today, which means loads of hiking. I'll be reducing my pack weight in Salisbury, and then it's Massachusetts within the week.

New York was a lot harder to walk than I thought it would be. It had rocks, it had a roller coaster and ruggedness in the shelter/water aspects. The views were terrific and it was bizarre running into huge groups of Hasidic Jewish kids, and when I would say, "Hey," to people, I would inevitably get back "How you doin?"

On a sadder note, the trail is now missing one Salty Dog, a very laid-back but industrious hiker from Kentucky who I first met in Palmerton and saw again in Delaware Water Gap and Unionville. Read his valediction to the trail here. I'll miss him.

Day 32: The Beermile challenge

My appetite has ramped up considerably. Shortly after a pancake breakfast at the RPH, I had a pint of ice cream, a calzone and a 20 oz soda and an energy drink at a deli.

Then came the beer mile challenge. This means we packed 12 beers [9 pounds] in each of our packs and hiked 12 miles, finishing a beer every mile.














[Me, Early Bear, Col. Mustard, Mississippi and Lil Dipper, July 11.]














[Halfway through!]

There were rhyming toasts, some jokes and a lot of singalongs. At the end, we made it to the Telephone Volunteers shelter just moments before a storm hit and in time to make dinner. More ramen!

Day 31: Food!

RPH shelter. There were signs for miles leading up to the shelter that said, "RPH trail project, July 10, 11, 12, barbecue."

It didn't disappoint.

I arrived at dinner time, mealless, and ate a big porkchop and a burger and more.

The night didn't go so well.

It was 5:30 a.m. Vrrrh. Vrrrh. Vrrrh. Vrrrh. Vrrrh. A phone vibrating. I looked down from my top bunk; it was on the other side of the room.

"What the f--k?" I heard, and then someone was climbing down from a top bunk and searching around, and the vibrating phone went silent. I thought the climber was Early Bear, but next morning it was Col. Mustard who told the story, pointing angrily at the spot where the phone person had slept.

Then I had some blueberry pancakes and hiked on in the morning, past the volunteers wrestling a massive skinned log into place on the trail.

Crossing the Hudson

[The Appalachian Trail crosses the Hudson River in New York via the Bear Mountain Bridge, July 9, 2009.]

Day 30: Trail Magic all day!

I hiked a whopping 6.4 miles from Ft. Montgomery, NY to the Graymoor monestary on July 9. The night before ended at a motel in Ft. Montgomery, where I shared a room with Z, the Romanian, and Early Bear and Lil Dipper also split a room. I had met all of them at a pub in town after descending Bear Mountain.

At Graymoor, Samwise and the Babes in Boots group [the twins plus Half Moon and Sunbeam and Squeegie] did some trail magic, along with Samwise's mom.

Samwise left the trail in Duncannon. He has rejoined it as of today, July 13, in Kent, Conn.

They made a cake:














The day was one long hiker picnic, with hot dogs, Yeunglings, channe massala [Indian vegetarian dish since Samwise is vegan] and a bulgar wheat dish, cherries, yadda yadda yadda. Chance and I triumphed over Early Bear and Lil Dipper in Euchre, the game of Ohio.

Next morning, the landscaper came by on his lawnmower at about 8 a.m.














[The pavilion at Graymoor monestary in New York, July 10. Chance in foreground, Half Moon in background.]

I see you, NYC

[The NYC skyline from the hike up to Bear Mountain, NY, July 9.]

Day 28: Hardest hike so far

Any day that starts with me being malnourished and dehydrated and includes four mountain climbs, two thunderstorms and an episode called the "lemon squeezer" is bound to be bad.

I'll have art on the day as soon as I get fotos from a fellow hiker via email.

By consensus opinion, the 14.3 mile stretch of trail from Wildcat shelter to Fingerboard shelter, in the beginning of New York, is probably the hardest hike since Harper's Ferry. Experienced hikers struggled to get above a 1.5 mph pace. I was finding it difficult to catch my breath and my legs burning with each step up.

At night I slept in the Fingerboard shelter, which is an old stone structure on a windswept and grassy ridgetop. Early Bear and Lil Dipper were there, as well as two hikers I didn't know, and Z showed up at some point in the night.

I also finally learned how to tie a bear bag thanks to Early Bear.

Ramen noodles never tasted so good.

Day 27: Breaking my distance record

After zeroing for two days at "the Mayor's house," I got back on the trail after breakfast on July 6, and by about 11 p.m. I had broken my distance record, hiking 29 miles [24.7 was previously the farthest I'd gone].

Breakfast was always the same: two sausage patties, a plain omelette, a fried potato pancake and two pieces of toast, with orange juice and coffee. I hiked out at 7:30 a.m. and about 11 miles down the trail, I tore through three scoops of ice cream at a farmer's market and fell asleep on the patio.

I moved to a more comfortable set of wicker furniture down the way when I woke up, and there I took in a mockingbird's performance. A group of hikers who had slept outside the mayor's house in tents the night before showed up and two hours disappeared.

I hiked out at 2:30 p.m. and the first climb took me to the top of the ridge I'd been looking at from the market porch and fearing. At 5, I reached the Wawayanda shelter, the last shelter in Jersey, which is 17 miles from the mayor's house. There were no tent sites and no people, and I felt wired, so I hiked a further 12 miles just for the satisfaction of getting Jersey behind me.

At about the state line I got out my nalgenes and dumped some orange drink into one of them and swirled it around. When I tasted it, I coughed uncontrollably. The other bottle was also contaminated with what must have been chemical residue from the inside of the hose from the mayor's house. I dumped them both out. A few miles on I sat down exhausted, verging on dehydration. I eventually got water from a stream.

It was about 11 p.m. when I got to Wildcat shelter in New York. I found the privy, then the bear box, but never the shelter, despite my headlamp and wandering. So I stashed my food and stuff in the box and crawled inside my tent feeling full of drive.

One Month!

July 10 marked my one month anniversary of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Thanks to everyone who has participated in the hike;I love getting your input.

As it happens, the anniversary turned out to be a good one. I spent it at the RPH shelter in New York, where a big group of trail volunteers were camping and grilling pork chops, burgers and chicken. I even got a game of hearts in with Chance, Mississippi and Bon Bon, a girl from Washington state who started in Georgia on April 17. Early Bear, the hiker I'd shared a shelter with on Day 1, was there as well.














[The cooking at RPH, July 10. The shelter is 33 miles from the end of the New York portion of the trail.]

In my first month, I hiked about 406 miles through West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York and got to within 761 miles of Katahdin, ME. It has been the experience of a lifetime and I'm looking forward to 200 percent more, and then 300 percent more when I do the bottom half of the trail.

Happy 233rd birthday, America

My July 4th was quiet. I spent it at "the mayor's house" with a bunch of hikers, going between watching fireworks from the back porch and watching the European version of "The Professional" in the living room.

What did you do?

Hopefully you didn't try to wipe away all traces of your colonial background...

I know Couscous!

I forgot to post about this earlier, but I just remembered: I know Couscous!

Couscous became a trail "celebrity" after she was interviewed by NPR for an on-air segment about people hiking during the recession.

The audio for the six-minute piece is here. The interview took place in Harper's Ferry. I hung out with Couscous in Delaware Water Gap. She hadn't listened to the piece yet, and she didn't even remember what she talked about. She's just that groovy.

In the segment, you'll also hear Pusher, whom I've also been running into for a couple of weeks. In fact he zeroed for at least two days here in Unionville.

Here's the text of the story.

Days 24 and 25: Hospitality

I am able to update this blog today because I'm at the home of Dick Ludwick, former mayor of the village of Unionville, NY. It's not in my guidebook, but it's widely known on the trail that Dick hosts hikers free of charge.

He has done so since 2007, mainly in honor of his late wife. He works with two other men, Butch and Bill, who help do the chores and cook the dinners and breakfasts. None of them have ever hiked the trail, but they admire people who do.

His house even has a couple of trees in the yard with white blazes on them to guide hikers to the door. At the deli in town they wear the T-shirt that advertises his house as "The Outhouse" for hikers, and they tell hikers how to get here. That's how I got here.

When I did get here, the place was filling up rapidly, and hikers kept arriving until we matched the record of 26 hikers for one night. It was almost a reunion of Palmerton.

Every night, he gives hikers a brief speech about the house rules, why he hosts and then plays two inspirational films: One about "Britain's Got Talent" winner Paul Potts and another about two men who did the trail to celebrate their 60th birthdays.

[After the hiking film, Leif e pumped his fist and shouted, "Yea! Let's go hike!"]














[Dick Ludwick, former mayor of Unionville, inspires hikers in his living room to finish the trail, July 3. "We want to be part of that victory," he said.]

The free laundry, internets and shower could not have come at a better time. My pack has been smelling frighteningly bad of late, and I've been looking more and more raggety.

We passed the evening watching "Rambo: First Blood."

Photo dump, cont.

[Early Bear passes the time at the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain Hostel, Delaware Water Gap, Pa., July 1]














[The AT in New Jersey, July 1]














[The trail gets elevated above a swamp in a bird sanctuary, New Jersey, July 3]

Day 23: More trail magic!

Thursday was one of the fastest, easiest and most enjoyable hikes on my trip yet. Just 3.6 miles past the Brink Road shelter the trail crosses US 206. Within a stone's throw of the trail, there is a little coffee shop/convenience store.

We descended on it en masse.














I added to my granola breakfast a greasy grilled ham n' cheese, a Monster energy drink, banana and small coffee. More than a few hikers wandered over to a tiny bar down the road [and ended up spending half the day there], but I pushed on, heading for the Rutherford Shelter to complete a 15.4 mile hike.

Less than six miles after the deli, an '04 thru hiker named Lorax and his dog, Django, were doing some trail magic at Sunrise Mountain [elev. 1,653 ft.]. Lorax had some reggae going, throwing a frisbee for Django to fetch, and was giving away grapes, apples and cold drinks to hikers. The 360 view took in all the forested hills of Jersey.

Lorax gave us some encouragment for getting to the northern reaches of the trail, which he said were the best parts. Now I can't wait to get to Vermont.














[from left: Lorax, Django, Papa Kiwi and me]

A group of us hikers took our time at the pavilion, it being a sunny day, and there being only five miles between the mountain and the next shelter.

We got to the Rutherford just as a thunderstorm hit the area. Like the Brink Road shelter, it was located in swampland, and the humming of mosquitoes rarely left my ears.














[hikers, plus a few Boy Scouts on the far right, get out of the rain at dinnertime, Rutherford Shelter, NJ]

I cooked one Ramen packet and ate it, then another, then a rice packet. Everything was wet and overgrown, no one could find the privy and for some reason a satellite dish topped the shelter. Papa Kiwi wondered if the club that maintains that section of trail is defunct.

Night brought the pain in the form of a plague of mosquitoes. I stayed in the shelter with Z because I didn't want to set up my tent in the wet thicket. Soon, four more hikers - two guys, Chance and Fly by, and two girls, Cyborg and Hardcore - set up inside, and everybody bundled up as best he or she could. I used my silk sleeping bag liner as a mosquito net. Sometime in the middle of the night Z, jostling himself out of his sleeping bag, said, "F--k this s--t," and got to dousing himself with bug spray. I borrowed it and accidentally squirted some in my eye because I couldn't figure out where the nozzle was. Chance shined his headlight around the room and I was up and rubbing my eye, and I said, "I shot myself in the eye with DEET," and the shelter had a long, goofballs laugh. Gallows humor? I think we woke some people up.

Then Hardcore asked, 'What would you rather have, New Jersey mosquitoes or Pennsylvania Rocks?'

I'd have to say, even after two nights like that [that have left me covered in bites from mid-thigh to toes], I'd take the bugs over the rocks.

Day 22: The jungles of Jersey

Remember how I predicted I'd soon see bears? They turned up that day.














I think it was a male and female pair. The male, the bigger one I presume, was a big guy. I clicked along the trail with my trekking poles, a thrilled energy going through me as I watched them pick at the grass, and they didn't even look at me. In fact, the male lay down to rest.

The terrain on the trail early in NJ closely resembles that of upper Pa.: rocky and narrow, so I got into autopilot pretty easily.

This snapped me back to the moment:














If there's any signal in nature that says "Back the [f--k] up right now!!!" more forcefully than a rattlesnake coiled up and rattling in your face, I can't imagine what it would be. I would pay $100 to see the reaction on my face when this snake wound up is rattle. I probably looked like I was about to barf.

Needless to say, I backed up. The snake, still rattling, didn't have any plans to the trail, so I gave it a wide berth and detoured around it.

When I arrived at the Brink Road shelter after hiking 24.7 miles [my biggest haul yet], it was almost dark.

The shelter sleeps five. There must have been at least 35 people camping there for the night. The number of tents was mind boggling.

When I went down to the creek to filter water, I found the key difference between New Jersey and the previous states I've hiked in: It's one giant mosquito farm! I looked down and saw about seven of them sucking on my right foot alone.

Luckily, I had my new tent to set up, and I bothered some people sleeping early by going around and around my tent, setting it up a bit at a time while reading the instructions. A thunderstorm woke me up at 2:30 a.m. and I felt quite peaceful in my own private chamber.

All my food, crockery and food trash meanwhile were in a big metal "bear box" near the shelter, along with everyone else's stuff. The first paragraph about New Jersey in my guide book says, "Bear boxes are provided at several New Jersey shelters; please use them! Bears are extremely active in this area...New Jersey has the highest population of bears per square mile..."

Milestone: Three weeks on the trail

I'm all packed and ready to hike into New Jersey today. In fact, I'm going to do some heavy miles in an attempt to catch up with the groups ahead of me [I zeroed yesterday in DWG].

What's behind:

- States defeated: 3 [W.Va., Md., Pa.]
- Snakes spotted: 3 [2 black racers, one copperhead]
- Chipmunks spotted: infinite
- Bears: 0 [that's probably about to change]

What's ahead:

- What will happen July 4? It seems like a ton of hikers are going into the Big Apple for the fireworks and a Conor Oberst show in Battery Park. Others are going to try to watch the fireworks from the trail, where NYC is visible from a mountain.
- A bit of Jersey, a bit of NY, Conn. and Mass., and then the trail gets real.
- 9 weeks of hiking!

And I'm off. See you down the trail.

-Jeremy