Wilderness

July 31

We haven't seen any of these familiar Wilderness signs in ages. Was it VA? They also coincide with mobile phone dead zones. No surprises there.



It truly is wilderness and I'm excited to see them again. While it has been really, really nice to be able to stop almost every day in a delicatessen for lunch for the last few states (especially NJ and NY), the wilderness is what this trip is all about and we are looking forward to New Hampshire and the White mountains and Maine and its wilderness.

The trail in Vermont

July 31

The AT and the Vermont Long Trail share the same path for about 125 miles starting at the MA border. The trail is the greenest we've seen. Trees, ferns, moss covering everything. It has a magical feeling to it. Some southbound AT thru hikers we met told us it was very muddy in Vermont. The weather has been perfect the last week so I'm guessing it has dried up a lot, but we still do see a lot of mud every day. It has to be moist to be so green.

Monster Birch Trees

July 30

My parent's house in Pennsylvania had a small stand of very old birch trees in a sheltered location in front of the house. They were very old but amazingly healthy due to being sheltered from wind and extreme cold by the house, I guess. They were the largest, oldest I had ever seen until now. I can't believe the size of the monster trees I'm seeing in Vermont. The trunk of the first one is almost 2 feet across. That's my hiking pole leaning against it.



And I loved the exposed roots on this one too.

Location:Green Mountains, VT

Another Fire Tower

July 30

Lots of these on the trail. It makes sense as the AT does hit the tops of a LOT of mountains. They're all abandoned. I guess they do this more efficiently with satellites these days. It's also great that they're still open and not locked down.

MA / VT border

July 28

We crossed into Vermont today. Very muddy, but also very beautiful.

Porcupine

July 28

Our list of animals we want to see in the wild grows shorter. Today we saw a porcupine wandering up the trail toward us. He saw us and raised his bristles, turned and slowly walked away. Very cool to see one so close.

Location:Northern MA near the VT border

Crossing the Mass Pike

July 25

I've driven under this pedestrian bridge before on my way across Massachusetts. We walked over it today and then under it. The trail loops down and under it.

Dinner with Adrian

July 23

Adrian drove out from Eastern Massachusetts to take us out to dinner in Great Barrington. It's a beautiful town in the Berkshires and we found a great pub for dinner and a few pints. Feeling really spoiled after Neil's visit Sunday and this just two days later. It is so good to see friends and family when you've been away so long.

Thanks Adrian. It was awesome.

P.S. Perhaps you shouldn't tell the SBC membership about my Bud Light Lime confession. They'll kick me out for sure.

Location:Great Barrington, MA

Tiny Toads

July 22

We've seen lots of toads on the trail. Today there were thousands of the tiniest toads I've ever seen. They were everywhere and it was hard to walk down the trail and not step on any.

Crossing into Massachusetts

July 22

Crossing into Massachusetts was stunning. The trail goes along a beautiful river gorge. It was lovely. Here's Matthew trekking across the border.

Location:CT/MA border.

The Giant's Thumb

July 21

Just another large rock on the trail. This one is called the Giant's Thumb.

Welcome to Connecticut

July 21

The sign on the trail where we crossed from New York into Connecticut. It was a very hot week with a heat advisory every day until 8 PM warning people to "avoid strenuous activity outdoors"...  Oh, well.

Location:NY/CT border

Lunch with Neil

July 21

Neil drove a couple of hours out to meet us on the trail in Falls Village, Connecticut and took us to lunch at the Falls Village Inn. A beautiful day, lunch on the porch of the Inn, great food, great beer, great company. Doesn't get any better than that. A lovely afternoon.

Thanks, Neil!

Location:Falls Village, CT

Highest Ground in CT

July 22

Along the trail we found this huge stone monument built in 1886. You can climb on top of the stones to get a great view. There was no way to get up to this site other than by foot so we figured they had to carry the inscribed stone there. The trail was too steep for horses.






Hard to read, but it says:

THIS MONUMENT
MARKS THE HIGHEST
GROUND IN CONNECTICUT
2351 FEET ABOVE THE SEA
BUILT A.D. 1886
OWEN TRAVIS
MASON

Location:42.04487, -73.45445

Racing

July 21

Walking along the trail today we heard the sound of traffic. Not that unusual as we are often near roads, but this sounded different. Sounded more like racing. Hard acceleration, fast shifting, going round and round.

I think it's the Skip Barber Racing School.

View from the trail:

Location:41.91852, -73.38621

First Southbound Through Hiker

July 17

We met our first southbound thru hiker. His name is Mercury and he's from Eugene, OR. He started at Mt. Katahdin on June 5.

Bridge in NY

July 18

Another amazing bridge. Wood and stone support structure built of materials gathered in the forest.


And another angle to see the stones piled in the center support.

Wooden Water Tower

July 18

Found this beautiful old wooden water tower in a farm field in Pauling, NY. Couldn't tell if it is still in use.

Location:Pauling, NY

AT train station

July 17

The AT has its own train station that is on the same Metro North line that goes to Bronxville and on to Grand Central Station in NYC. It's a small station and only has weekend service. Here's Matthew taking up a third of the platform.

Location:41.59387, -73.58767

Bears in New York

July 12

We saw two more bears today on our way up and over Bear Mountain. And then at the base of the mountain, the AT goes right through a zoo at its lowest point. Yes, it is its lowest altitude (around 120 ft) but is also its most depressing point too. Most of the animals we saw were in the tiniest cages. Two beautiful wolves were in a cage not much bigger than the US prison standard for humans. It was depressing.

These bears, however had a decent sized play area and since I had not managed to get any good pictures of the nine bears we have seen in the wild so far, I took a pic.

Location:Bear Mountain, NY

Tony's Deli

July 17

New Jersey and New York have a really nice feature to the trail. There seems to be a place to stop for a cold drink and sandwich every day. We stopped in Pauling, NY this afternoon at Tony's Deli on route 22. Amazing sandwiches. HUGE. Hiker meals on a sub roll. Really nice guy running the place too.
Highly recommended.

Location:41.58365, -73.59125

Home for the Weekend

July 12-14

Steve picked us up Friday afternoon on a trail crossing about 35 miles from our home and took us home for the weekend. Soooo good to see her again. She then took us back to the trail Monday morning.

Neighbor's comment Saturday: "You know, Keith, you really should shave that beard. It makes you look so old." He's right. It scares me when I see myself in a mirror.

Matthew and I went to an old school barber shop for haircuts and were both asked several times by the barbers if they could at least trim our beards. They do look bad. We only got haircuts. We promised to return in September for haircuts and shaves.

Location:Bronxville, NY

Wet Cave

July 11

Kind of a wet floor, but a big cave right on the trail in NY. The opening is about 15 feet wide.  Sorry the photo is so blurred.

Snapping Turtle

July 9

We saw this turtle walking down the trail headed back to the swamp. The shell is a little more than a foot long.


Cool spiky tail

Blueberries

July 10

Blueberries everywhere now. Could fill gallon jugs with them. I keep stopping to eat a handful and they are delicious. There seem to be many varieties and there color, size and flavor vary. They are almost constantly on both sides of the trail. Here's one growing right on the trail out of a crack in the stone.

Waterfall with Staircase

July 10

If you look on the right side of these photos, the light blue patch is Matthew climbing the stairs. It helps give some perspective to this beautiful waterfall.

Mosquitos

July 10

New Jersey really is beautiful but the mosquitos are unbearable. Sooooo glad to be out of there. I have never seen swarms of hundreds of them around me before. I am using industrial strength (100%) DEET that feels like olive oil when you apply it and says it lasts up to 10 hours. I had to apply it three times a day. A local resident told us it has gotten much worse in recent years because all the bats in the state are dying. Very sad.

Location:New Jersey

New Jersey

July 9
New Jersey is surprisingly beautiful along the AT. I guess I was expecting Newark, but was pleasantly surprised. We saw a bear a day for the first three days. One large bear was very close (about 30 feet away) when we saw him and when we made noise he slowly turned and lazily wandered toward us. He stopped about 15 feet away, looked at us for 10-15 seconds (seemed like minutes) and then turned away and walked uphill. (Phew!!). I know these bears are not aggressive but we were more than a little nervous.

A cool boardwalk that's almost a mile long through the swamp.


Surprisingly no mosquitos there but they are EVERYWHERE else in New Jersey.

Great to See Friends

July 6

A friend from University of Delaware graduate school days (early 1980's) came to visit us on the trail. Jon and Marg Schuchardt amazed us with their generosity in driving over two hours each way to see us, picking us up and driving to a diner for a great breakfast. This would have already been way more than anyone should do. They live in Pennsylvania and their trip could have been way shorter had my phone not died on the day we were aiming for and were an hour closer to their home. Despite us being so far away by the time I had a replacement phone, they insisted upon coming anyway. When we arrived back at the trail they surprised us with a cooler full of fresh fruit, dried fruit, root beer (our favorite) and everything from zip lock bags to insect repellent. We stuffed our bags and ate like kings on the mountain for days. The fresh oranges, grapes, and cherries were the most exquisite things when your diet consists of dried and reconstituted everything.

Jon took a photo of us at the road crossing. This was at the 1300.1 mile point of our hike.



Thanks again, Jon and Marg.

Dinner with Mark

June 28

My brother Mark drove up to Port Clinton to take us to dinner and do our resupply shopping. It was great to see him - not so sure it was great for him to smell us. It's unbelievable how bad it gets when it has been a week or two since any part of your body other than your hands has seen soap and water. Especially in the intense heat.

We had a wonderful dinner and a few beers in the neighboring town.

Thanks Mark!

Location:Port Clinton, PA

Trail Photo

July 5

Walking out of Pennsylvania today, the trail goes across the Delaware River on the Route 80 bridge. Getting to it was not the most beautiful part of the trail. Here's Matthew following the AT signs.

Location:Delaware Water Gap, PA

Back from Radio Silence

July 5

Sorry for disappearing for a week. We have had some incredible rainstorms the past week and one of them drowned my phone. It has been replaced so I can post again, but I'm trying to recover the draft blog posts and photos in it from the last week. It's getting the rice treatment to try to dry it out.
We are in New Jersey at last.

Location:41.01265, -75.04727