Day 96, 16.7 miles to Rock 55
The trail left right out of town, across a busy bridge over the Delaware River. And just like that, Pennsylvania was done! We know the rocks will continue, but it was such a relief to cross that milestone off. New Jersey began subtly pretty, but crowded. We saw our first lake in months, and swimming wasn’t allowed, but I took a break on the breezy shore. Then we walked a hot ridge with good views all the way to the Mohican Outdoor Center. We have been joking about the Mohican for weeks, as Tex randomly chose it as a place to have a new fanny pack sent. It turned out to be much farther away than he expected.
We devoured cheesesteak (me) and ice cream (the guys) at the Mohican and enjoyed the air conditioning. A staff member brought out lots of leftover food to share among the hikers. We headed down to their small beach on Catfish Pond and swam alongside several happy families. Some kind of fish struck my feet if I stood, so I floated in the glorious water, just the perfect temperature. After we got out, an enormous snapping turtle floated by the other swimmers but didn’t bother anyone.
When we finally got moving again, we passed an old quarry beavers had transformed into a swampy subdivision, with lodges all down the middle and lily pads blooming. I was hot again and envied the beavers their cool lodgings. We all hustled along, heading for our camp site, when the trail rose up a short, steep hill. It was nothing, just a little climb, but I was hurrying through the heat to keep up with the guys. Immediately, I struggled to breathe, my heart raced, my ears rang, and I felt like I was swaying. What is wrong with me? I thought. Why can’t I just hike?! The baby hill leveled off and I had a couple easy miles to get myself pulled back together. If someone had told me last spring, that in early July I would be doing twenty mile days through New Jersey but had to plod slowly up hills when it got muggy and hot, I would have been thrilled that steamy climbs were my only trouble. At some point, I need to make peace with my expectations and limitations. But I have said that all along, and equanimity fails me.
I finally got to camp at Rock 55, a spot leveled by a developer before the National Park Service bought this land. 55 was painted on the rock, house number style. Klondike and Taxman sat on Rock 55 like Snoopy and Woodstock when I arrived, and Tex was making his dinner, his first attempt at cold-soaking. Most hikers cook either freeze-dried camping meals or something cheaper and lightweight like ramen or instant rice. Cold-soaking is when you don’t heat water to cook a meal, you just soak it in tepid water. It’s quick and efficient, plus you don’t need fuel or a stove. Everyone thinks the bad thing about cold-soaking is the lack of hot meals and coffee, but I’ve been cold-soaking for years, and I can assure you, the worst part is the limited variety. There are only a few easy to find foods that can be cold-soaked, so we mostly eat couscous, mashed potatoes, ramen, or oatmeal.
Tex dives in headfirst when he tries new things, so in true Tex style, he sent his stove and pot home. I was a little alarmed that he would hate the meal, but he dolled his couscous up with olive oil, a chicken packet, and my favorite—a mayo packet—and enjoyed the meal. It was still very hot, but we had a slight breeze on the ridge and a beautiful sunset. It was a good night’s sleep.
Day 97, 21 miles to Mashipacong Shelter
Before I came to New Jersey, I had one idea of what this section might entail. Humidity. And wow, did today deliver. The ridge had been a fantastic place to spend a humid night, with a light breeze blowing across the camp. My new tiny tent has less cross ventilation than the old double-door model, so the breeze was a blessing. Nothing was drier in the morning, but things weren’t really too wet anyway.
I pushed off early and enjoyed the morning, although it was already hot and I was instantly soaked. I loaded up with good water at a spring, which carried me to a creek with tannic water that looked horrible, but filtered up quite nicely. Then Tex caught me at a side trail the next water, which I had decided to skip. He brought water back for me too, and we shared with Taxman. Tex said it was difficult to fill the bottles at the shallow water and the mosquitoes had been the worst yet. It was very hot now, and I was thankful for the extra water. They sped off, but I am learning to slow down in the heat and not overload my body. Once I get too hot, it is hard to cool off and recover.
We popped off the trail right at Kittatinny Lake and ate at the Mountain House Restaurant. It was surprisingly delicious, and I had pizza with soppressata, fresh mozzarella, basil, and hot honey drizzle and an icy Arnold Palmer. The guys enjoyed the stunning waitresses. The air conditioning made us cold in our sweaty outfits, and cold is what I long for. It felt incredible. Despite being so hot when I arrived, I remembered to charge my phone, wash my hands and face, toss my trash, and switch to sandals to air my feet. Recharged, we stormed up Sunset Mountain Road to the Outlook, getting off to the side of the trail slightly and enjoying the complete lack of rocks for five miles. Then it was back into the rocks for the last 3.5 miles to the Mashipacong Shelter, one of the few dry shelters. Angels had left a water cache. The mosquitoes held off and let us eat dinner, but later the buzzing outside my tent was disturbing. How would I ever get out to pee? Dozens would pour in the door.
Day 98, 20.2 miles to a highway, Happy Birthday, Flora! I miss you!
The trail led right to the park office for the New Jersey High Point State Park. This peak was about as exciting as the “best view in Pennsylvania” (metal farm buildings and factories). The high point in New Jersey (1803 feet) is so NOT high that they put a monolith on top to make it stand out. BUT, I washed my hands and face, threw out trash, charged my phone, and bought an icy ginger ale, which I drank in the cool lodge, so I was pretty pumped. Just to be away from the mosquitoes was thrilling. They aren’t bad if you keep moving, but wreck any breaks.
I made it up to the observation deck to view the high point of New Jersey, a dramatic monolith on a rather dull hill. I stalled out there hanging with another trail family, who were teasing one member about how many water bottle caps he’d lost, as they searched for his current cap. He was doing that thing where you keep looking in the place you thought you put something, long after establishing that it isn’t there, instead of exploring other options. I called home, sitting in the shade of the deck. It sprinkled as I moved on, and I marveled at the irony of hiking through so much moisture, without any water sources. The next water sources were bogs and stagnant puddles or tannic trickles.
Tex and Taxman caught me sitting in the trail, not in the mosquito-ridden shade or hot sun, but in a grassy patch between, just randomly sitting in the trail to avoid poison ivy. It was not a great spot. We hustled off towards town, another six miles to air conditioning and protein. Like some sort of fable, the trail led up and down, past charming farmland, bleating sheep, and stone walls, through a desolate swamp and then a down-right eerie swamp, across wooden foot bridges that should have had tiny trolls, and finally to Union and an Uber to the Wit’s End Tavern. The Wit’s End was the most comforting dive bar, friendly to hikers and deeply cold. Heaven. I took the waitress’s advice and ordered smoked ribs with coleslaw, sweet potato fries, and light beer. How can life be so hot and hard and then so sweet and wonderful? Two hours before I was being devoured by heat and bugs, sitting in tick-infested grass. Now bliss.
Then it began to pour and we all scrambled to get our packs and stinky shoes under cover. Of course we had immediately taken off our miserable wet shoes and switched to sandals. We sat there in the cool, watching the rain through the window, looking at the satellite images of the never-ending storm, and all resolve shrank down and scurried under the door. There would be no more hiking. The hotel was full of all the sensible people who planned better, so we ordered an Uber to “meth land”, according to the waitress, and an available room. Everyone there was very friendly, but admittedly dental-challenged. Safety in numbers, plus the room was clean and comfortable and there were no mosquitoes. Or bedbugs. I checked.
Day 99, 24 miles to Greenwood Lake
We immediately started a big climb, and at the base I ran into two friends who were slack-packing the trail, which is a good idea, given the heat and lack of water. They asked, “Why are YOU going south?!” and I said, “I am?!” I’d only gone 100 feet, but that feels so depressing when it happens. Tex and Taxman showed up and I checked—we were going the right way—and gave the slack-packers the bad news. Dismayed, they realized they had hiked two miles in the wrong direction, meaning they had another two pointless miles back to their starting point. They had forgotten their bug spray, so I let them use mine, but it’s better for ticks, not the mosquitoes that were bothering them. Poor guys.
Later in the morning, we had a wonderful boardwalk through a swamp. It would have been more fun if it wasn’t so hot and buggy, but it was smooth underfoot, and an unusual landscape. We stopped midday at Heaven Hill Farm, to cool off and get fluids, since the water sources here are mostly stagnant, brown, and warm. I drank two iced lattes and then we headed up the Staircase to Heaven Trail. I had been worried about the climb, and it was steep and steamy, but I just went slow and it was fine. The next section was smoother and easy compared to the last few hundred miles, and I tried to hurry, but the heat was intense.
It was fourteen miles from Heaven Hill to the town of Greenwood Lake, and that didn’t sound too bad, but the hike was going slowly. The water was horrible and I probably wasn’t drinking enough of the tannic streams and beaver ponds. Then the trail reached New York. Well, New York, that was quite the introduction! This section was beautiful scrambles over rocks and giant slabs, with dreamy views down to Greenwood Lake. If I hadn’t been exhausted, dehydrated, and worried about being so far behind, I would have loved it. The blazes were infrequent enough that I really had to focus and took a few wrong turns, wasting more time and energy, but I loved the challenge of rock hopping and blaze chasing.
The scrambles and slabs took forever. One of my poles collapsed and I was too sweaty to unscrew it, so I stowed it away and used only one. A few times, the trail was a climb, and I had to toss my trekking pole up and pull myself up after. Looking down at the lake and a boat cruising by the island, I questioned my choice of hobbies. This was so hard—my muscles burned, my feet hurt, sweat was running all over me in rivulets. I texted and the guys were 1.3 and 2 miles ahead. There was no option but to push on. Finally I reached the side trail to town and dropped quickly down into town, despite a wrong turn. I was completely spent. All afternoon, I had been trashing my self-esteem, berating myself for weakness and fragility, but the guys were exhausted too. I’m sorry it was an ordeal all around, but frankly relieved that my experience wasn’t outside the norm. Not bad for an old bitch.
The owner of the Lake Lodge picked us up and checked us into a cozy room. What a relief! We grabbed loaner clothes, showered, ordered food, and crawled into bed to watch a movie. My legs kept cramping all evening, roving cramps from my feet, up my calves, to agonizing thigh cramps. I worried I wouldn’t get any sleep, but actually exhaustion knocked me right out and I slept great.
Day 100! 16 miles to Island Pond
We slept in, went to Dunkin’ Donuts, and lay in bed watching IBTAT (on YouTube) hike the portion of the trail ahead. He complained less than me yesterday. Last night, after I poured out a litany of woes, my husband Jeff said, “But you’re having fun, right?” Honestly, that’s a pretty valid question right now. No. Yesterday wasn’t fun. I’m proud of myself for the hard miles I knocked out and relieved to have reached New York. I knew going into the trail that the hot weeks in this area would be my nemesis. Every day doesn’t have to be a joy to make the journey worthwhile. But perspective is helpful when things are a struggle, and this last week included huge challenges. If you watch videos of thru-hiking, you’ll see all the good stuff, the community, the views, the epic climbs and wildlife. Thru-hiking is also straddling blow-down trees, moving fast to keep the cloud of mosquitoes out of reach, and sweat trickling into your eyes. It’s rain, boredom, ticks, cheap hotels (not this lovely one), wearing ugly loaner clothes to pick up bad coffee, and eating crap.
Today was hard again, mostly because of the heat and steepness. It was a stunning trail, with giant slabs and rock climbing. It was also a little sadistic and redundant. Tex described it as a kid showing his mother his rock collection, which all look basically the same. It just kept leading us to more and more heaps of boulders. I liked them a lot, but after a while, I didn’t feel like climbing over more. New York also has beautiful ponds and lakes, and I can’t get enough of those, plus the forest is open and inviting, after the thorny Virginia jungle. Take me to lakes, please.
We stopped to camel up at a waterfall, with stairs leading upwards. It was the perfect place to stop, but we had just seen a sign for Trail Magic in 5.3 miles, ending at 3:30. Taxman pointed out that it meant a big hurry to get there in time. I did try, but I also asked him to save me something if I didn’t make it in time. There were steep ups and downs all afternoon, culminating in a sheer drop down the hill to the Magic. I hurried but short of tumbling into the parking lot, I couldn’t hustle any faster. It was almost four o’clock when I arrived to find the trucks packed and food stowed. The Trail Angels cheered for me, their 33rd hiker of the day, and Taxman pulled out cold cokes, steamy hot dogs, and chips, the last food set aside for me and Klondike. Yay to fast hiking buddies! Yay to trail angels! Yay!
We continued on to camp. It was an enchanted campsite, with a breeze off the beautiful lake, warm swimming water (although prohibited), stunning trees, and fireflies. We’ve seen many fireflies since it got hot, but I never tire of their little touch of magic. Here’s Tex’s photo of our camp.
Day 101, 15 miles to Island Pond
New York has been an emotional roller coaster. I popped awake at 6 am and let the air out of my sleeping pad so I wouldn’t go back to sleep. I really wanted to push miles during the cool morning. Instead, I had instantaneous regret, lying there on the hard ground with a rock under my thighs; it would have been so delightful to doze off again. I ate breakfast, packed up, and filtered more hot water from the lake. I should have used it to make coffee, because it sure wasn’t refreshing as water.
I was an absolute noodle all morning, drooping along the trail on rubbery legs, dizzy and swaying. The trail led up to the Lemon Squeezer, a narrow slot through the rock. The crevasse swarmed with mosquitoes, as if they knew you were trapped in there and couldn’t hurry. Then the trail went straight up the boulders in a hands-on climb, but I knew the blue-blaze bad weather trail was a better idea for woozy me. I finished the climb and lay on the rock slabs, feeling seriously sick. Maybe my immune system was stressed from the overwhelm of the last two days?
There were some more ups and downs until the first reasonable water source, a stunning footbridge over a mostly clear creek. Other hikers had gathered there, and I sat to chat and recover. I was determined to feel better. I drank tons of water with electrolytes and snacked. The cold seeped into me, from the rocks, water, and cool air, and when I finally pushed on, I felt brand-new and powerful. I charged on, over several more hills and dropped to an old roadbed alongside a creek. The road was long abandoned, but the stone wall supporting it remained intact. The forest was open and inviting, with huge trunks and a leafy floor. What a magical landscape, impossible to not imagine horse-drawn wagons and colonial settlers moving along the route.
Ambassador, whose trail family had camped with us last night, caught up there and we marveled that we hadn’t seen either trail family all day. We checked, discovering they’d stalled out at the second lake’s beach. Wingit had shown up with hamburgers and the beach was so wonderful they wasted the morning and decided to road walk. Only problem was, they headed the wrong direction somehow and wound up far from the trail. I pushed on down the trail, wondering how I would meet them and finally connected by text, realizing they were now at the trail, 0.3 miles ahead. The wrong-way fiasco had them burnt out, as any wrong-way miles always do. It was time to regroup with BBQ and beer. Down on the interstate was a traffic jam, so all the Ubers kept accepting and then declining our ride. By the time one came, we had Klondike as well and didn’t all fit in the tiny car. It took a bribe just to get him to carry four of us, so Ambassador stayed, waiting for Wingit and his trail family.
Clearly we have an unsustainable habit here, of bailing out to town. It isn’t the miles, which we are making. I reached the 1400 mile mark today! We aren’t behind, even with the ridiculous Zero-paloozza we took, but I can’t afford to platinum blaze this trail. Thru-hiking is never cheap, but platinum blazing uses every handy hotel, Uber, and delivery service, with restaurant meals and expensive slack-packing packages. I did my other trails on a ramen, hitchhiking, and free camping budget. I knew I would spend much more here, where town is always handy, but this was absurd.
Day 102, 19 miles to Dennytown Camp
As always from a hotel, we got a late start. The trail ran through the crowded recreation area around Hessian Lake and the zoo. I had never seen a beaver’s giant paws before, so that was cool, but the animals looked sad and hot in their tiny exhibits. Most of them had been rescued and rehabbed, but still that kind of captivity makes me very uncomfortable. Imagine being a Peregrine Falcon in a cage too small to fly.
We crossed the Hudson on a giant bridge and headed up a steep climb. It was a Saturday, so the trail was crowded with confused day hikers and a crew of trail maintainers putting in new steps. They were working incredibly hard in the heat, building a stone staircase where the trail had eroded. Our trail split and all the muggles (not thru-hikers) headed right, while we headed left into quiet. It was another hard, hot hike. It’s difficult to keep up morale, when the trail looks the same as most of the last 1400 miles, but was now muggy and 87 degrees. Fortunately, the trail passed the first of the New York delis, and we bought cold drinks and lunch, sitting in the shade with other hikers.
The trail passed many old stone walls from early farming communities. It was hard to imagine this area then, without the forest, just pastures and fields. With all the rocks, I can’t believe they farmed at all. There was the remnants of a camp used by the Revolutionary Army, with the base of a building used to inoculate soldiers against smallpox. Why didn’t we hear, when the country battled over COVID-19 vaccines, that our founding father had his whole army inoculated?
The afternoon was impossibly steamy, but there was trail magic twice. First were huge cooler jugs of badly-needed water, and right at our camp was a cooler of icy Gatorade and beer. We set up tents and sat at a picnic table, slapping mosquitoes, drinking beer, and eating dinner. On most of my hikes, camp is a huge relief at the end of the day, but on the AT, it’s been too hot lately to be much of a reprieve. So to have an icy PBR and a table was magically refreshing, even with mosquitoes. Unfortunately, when we got in our tents, Tex’s sleeping pad had deflated, which is usually the start of a very uncomfortable night.
Day 102, 10.7 miles to RPH Shelter, Happy Birthday to my mom! Love you!
The patched sleeping bag held and it was a wonderful place to camp, with fireflies until late. I let myself sleep in, believing yesterday’s weather report that erroneously stated today would be cooler. For the first time, I was not the first out of camp, leaving the same time as Tex. We all headed to Canopus Lake and met for lunch, with others too. The beach and lake were crowded with people from the city, but we enjoyed the cool patio and cold drinks. 
This section, with its abundant food stops, is supposed to bring up morale, but ours is flagging, especially mine. I’m exhausted by the buggy green tunnel and pointless climbs. The shallow, brown streams are warm and distasteful, making the food stops even more necessary to find decent water. And when you do find a wonderful camp or shelter, the bugs drive you into tents early. None of this would bother me, being all the usual thru-hiking stuff, but the oppressive heat is all I can think about, the stickiness and stinkyness and how hard it makes everything feel. You can’t get up before it; the East never cools off. 
(This is how I feel every day.) So we faded nine miles early, at the RPH shelter, a comfy spot with chairs and bunks. Something tempted each of us, the lounge chair, the available pizza delivery, the opportunity to not hike farther, the deli ahead for tomorrow’s dinner. All I know is this is unsustainable, this apathy I’ve acquired. Finishing this hike requires two things that elude me: liking the hike and pushing the miles. I just want to lay in the air conditioning and eat salad. Don’t make me hike up rocks in muggy, buggy, sticky, stinky heat. How did anyone live here before air conditioning? Here’s how sweaty this trail gets, with soaked shorts leaving an imprint behind.
Day 103, 25 miles to Wiley shelter
One of the other campers got up at 4 AM and left at five. It seemed like a laudable idea to cruise in the cool, so I forced myself on trail at six. There were two big climbs in the morning, the ones we were supposed to do yesterday evening and decided to skip. Eventually, I ran into Tex on trail. He had done a short road walk down to the nearest deli and gotten something to drink and come back. We got to talking and decided maybe we should do a road walk later in the afternoon to the second deli, so when we got to that part of the road, we headed down towards the town of West Pauling. It was pretty, very New York, and felt more like being on a road trip. When you’re out here things really don’t change much. Yes, the forest is different than it was down south, but I could take a picture daily of every forest, mix them up, and you wouldn’t know which state they were from. There’s less mountain laurel and Rhododendron in New York, but today we walked through a ton of mountain laurel. Yes the forest is more open than Virginia, but there are lots of viney stretches, as full of poison ivy as Virginia. But the architecture in towns and houses has changed dramatically along the trail and walking through these neighborhoods is fascinating, their ancient rock walls, and old wood houses.
So we walked to Tony’s Deli, which must be the most Italian sounding deli name ever. I always ask at restaurants what they recommend, and here they recommended a cheesesteak cooked Mike’s style. That’s what everybody got, and I finally got the iced coffees I’ve been longing for all day, every day, all summer. I got super wired. While we waited at Tony’s, a thunderstorm blew through, but there was really no getting away from rain today. There were flood warnings, and it would rain all evening.
We hiked back up to the trail, into beautiful pastures. What a treat to not walk through a forest for a while. Then it was back into the forest, densely, overgrown, and dank. It started to bucket rain and continued pouring all the way to the shelter at mile six. It felt good though, to walk through cool rain instead of the heat. It poured and poured and poured. The tiny shelter was stuffed with wet people so I set up in a little space down below. There are lots of nice camping platforms, but ultralight tents don’t work on camping platforms. There must be a road right below us because occasionally I hear a car go by very close, but it’s quiet in the rain.
