Day Before Hike

Day Before Hike
Sunday, September 25, 2016

This will be our 9^th section hike.  We started in the Fall of 2011 at Springer Mountain, Georgia, and have hiked 1293.2 up to the Delaware River Bridge where the Pennsylvania/New Jersey State line falls in the middle of the bridge.  We have seen some beautiful countryside from a vantage point that few people are privileged to experience.  Some people think we are crazy, some are in amazement, and some are envious.  We count ourselves blessed to have good health and the ability to do what we are doing.  These adventures – both enjoyable and not so enjoyable – make good memories and these memories are ones that only Wait-up and Catch-up can rehash over and over again.  We come home each time thoroughly exhausted, but we don’t get home before we start talking about our next journey. 

We have done minimal training for this section, but we feel confident that we can make up for it by planning fewer miles the first few days, and by the fact that the elevation is not that bad.  Wait-up has just come home from an elk hunting trip in Colorado where he had more elevation and tougher days than we will have, plus he did do some training with his backback before he went hunting.  So we figure he should be in shape by now.  Catch-up (me) also did a little training with my backpack, but not nearly as much as usual.  The summertime in Florida is very hot, and hard to make yourself get out there and do it. 

Before starting this section, we were figuring our remaining miles.  “Someone” had the thought that, if we could do 300 miles for the next three times, we would be finished.  That would be wonderful, since we have so far to drive now from Florida.  So we began to put that plan into place.  This hike would cover New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts for a total of 299 miles.  We had no doubt that we could do that mileage.   

We also planned our itinerary to be in the woods for longer stretches of time – seven days instead of our usual three or four.  We will really begin to feel (and smell) like thru-hikers by the end of seven days!  This was due to the fact that shuttle drivers and hostels are fewer in these upper states than they are in the south.   It’s not very feasible to have a driver come a great distance to take us only a short distance up the trail. 

Other changes we have made this time include, leaving our stove out and eating cold meals and using a tarp to construct a tent.  This is due to the fact that there has been a drought this summer and the water sources are dried up.  We will have to carry more water with us for further distances, making our packs heavier.  We need to save weight where we can. 

Wait-up was suffering from a sinus problem which got worse when we got in the wet, cold woods. He didn’t sleep well because of it and it would prove to be a hindrance.

So – I’ll go ahead and give you the end of the story now.  We both struggled, both mentally and physically the entire 15 days.  As it turned out, we only did 162 miles through New Jersey and New York.  Which, of course, is nothing to be ashamed of,  it’s just not what we planned for.  Granted, both states were pretty challenging with a lot of rocks, but so was Pennsylvania and we had a great time there.  What was so different about this time?  We couldn’t have gotten that much older in 5 months time.  In hind sight, we should not have planned our first week to be seven days out without a break, since we were not in good condition when we started.  Seven days out from the car turned into nine and we were never so glad to see the car when we finally reached it.  Perhaps we should have waited a while longer after Wait-up’s elk hunting trip – maybe he was still run down from that.  We should have taken some sinus medications with us.  We should have taken our stove – we both decided that it would have been advantageous to have a hot meals morning and night.  It probably would have helped with the mental struggle (comfort food, you know) as well as the physical.  We both got tired of the cold food and lost our appetite for it. 

Our daily mileage was around 12 miles, usually it’s closer to 14.  We hiked for 13 days, with 2 days off.  We were 4 days behind our planned schedule when we stopped in Wingdale, New York – 162 miles.  We both agreed it was time to call it a day. 

So here goes our story about New Jersey and New York:
On Sunday, September 25, 2016, we drove to Tuxedo, New York – a distance some 18 hours or 1200 miles from our house in Florida – made more manageable by a stopover in Knoxville, TN where our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live.  Tuxedo is a little spot on the map, identified in our Hiker’s Companion as the crossing for Southfields, New York or Harriman, New York.  Anyway, we chose this location because it is located near the end of where we wanted to hike to on the first leg of this section, so we could leave our car.

The Tuxedo Motel had good reviews, so we felt fairly confident about staying there.  Upon checking in after dark on Sunday night, we found it to be okay.  The check-in process is a little different – the clerk was behind a caged-in window.  He directed us to our room around the corner, which was a typical motel-looking setting.  It had a walkway running along in front of the rooms, which smelled heavily of cigarette smoke as we walked to our room.  We thought, uh oh, this is not good.  But when we got to our room we were pleasantly surprised to find that it did not smell of smoke.  It was clean smelling and in good order.  Nothing fancy, but nicer than some we have stayed in.   The shower was clean and adequate.  We found the two double beds to be hard, but clean. That, plus the sinus problem Wait-up had, led to a pretty sleepless night.