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.
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