Day One
Monday, September 26, 2016
Delaware River Bridge to Catfish Fire Tower
12.7 miles
This morning, we met George Lightcap, our shuttler, at
Tiorati Circle/Arden Valley Road at 7:00.
We had met George back in 2013 at Mountain Harbour Hostel at Roan Mountain,
TN the day before he completed the AT after 28 years of section hiking. He had told us then to look him up when we
got to New Jersey, which we thought at the time it would be forever for us to
do. But low and behold, here we are in
New Jersey!
It was a new experience for us to be so far from our
car. We typically do three days/two
nights at a time before we reach our car.
This time we are stretching it out to seven days. That will make us feel more like a thru-hiker
for sure!
George delivered us to Delaware Water after a pleasant ride
and good conversation. We also saw a
bear crossing the road somewhere in New Jersey as we drove south. Before crossing the Delaware River Bridge, we
felt the need to go to the bathroom, so rang the bell on the door of the Bridge
Toll Plaza to see if we could use theirs – mistake! A lady came to the door and I asked if they
had a public bathroom and she said, “No, but I’ll let you use ours.” And she let us in and directed us to the
restrooms. Before I could finish up
though, she came in and said, “I hate to rush you, but we are not suppose to
let people in.” And she stood and watched me until I could get everything
together and get out of there. I guess
someone had said something to her about letting us in. I felt like a criminal. So we got out as quickly as we could, and
proceeded across the Delaware River Bridge.
We started hiking at 9:00.
The weather is crisp and cool, about 44 degrees. We started out with long sleeves, but that
didn’t last long. Our packs were fairly
heavy at this point – about 34 pounds for Wait-up and about 27 for me. We were carrying 4 days of food and 2 liters
of water for each of us. It has been a
dry summer for New Jersey and we had been hearing that the water sources were
dry, so we had to be sure to carry enough water until we reached the next sure
water source. Sure enough, for the next several days, we did not see running
streams but a couple of times.
It was exciting to see the Delaware/New Jersey state line
about half way across the Delaware River Bridge. Here we go!
Immediately after crossing the bridge, we came to the
Kittatinny Point Visitors Center before crossing the road and heading into the
woods. We could have used the bathroom
here! Plenty of parking available
too.
The Sunfish Pond is a well-known landmark on the trail. It is the southernmost glacial pond on the
A.T. and one of seven protected natural areas in New Jersey. It has a bench conveniently located, just
right for viewing the pond and resting awhile (and taking a selfie).
Just north of Sunfish Pond we crossed the only flowing water we will see
for several days.
On the shore of the pond, a little further north, is an interesting "cairn field", ha ha. (Not to be confused with a "corn field.")
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| See the rattlesnake? |
We saw our first rattlesnake on the trail somewhere along
here. He was curled up beside the trail
with rattlers rattling big time. We
tried to scare him away, but he would not budge. Wait-up finally edged around him on the
trail, but I made a BIG detour and got around him through the woods.
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| Rattlesnake! |
The terrain proved to be much like we had left behind in
Pennsylvania, rocky trails and more rocky trails.
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| Mohican Outdoor Center |
We reached the Mohican Outdoor Center at 3:30 and took a
nice long break there, taking advantage of the running water to eat dinner,
brush teeth and fill up our water bottles for the night and next day.
After about an hour at the Center, we went on up to Catfish
Fire Tower and a little beyond set up our tarp tent for the night. We stopped around 6:00 p.m. We went to bed listening to the locusts making a
deafening fuss, but not much sleep again because of Wait-up’s nose running all
night.
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| Mohican Outdoor Center |
Here are some views from the trail.
