July 24th - July 28th

Last full day in New Jersey featured, appropriately I guess, a mile-long boardwalk. It’s in a swampy area, and it was surprisingly gorgeous. I hit it on a sunny, warm-but-not-hot afternoon following a rainy morning. There were purple wildflowers in the high grasses, a breeze blowing over the meadows like wheat, cardinals building nests in the cattails. Building a boardwalk here was an enormous amount of work – thousands and thousands of volunteer hours over a period of years. I hope some of the volunteers got to come back on days like this.

A mile or so after the boardwalk, the trail cuts through a few fields before hitting a road just a few hundred yards away from a farmers’ market with fresh fruit and ice cream. From there, you can hitch 2 miles into Vernon, NJ, with a church hostel. Not a bad day at all . . . .

— The first few days in NY have been rock, rock, rock. It looks like it’s going to be this way more often than not from here on out. All of this area was covered in glaciers in the last ice age, and when they receded, they took all of the dirt with them, apparently. Went through something called “the Lemon Squeezer” – it’s a rock fissure that’s at most 3 feet wide. To get through you pretty much have to hold your pack over your head and try to get through it like that. Just beyond that is another ledge, about 6’ high, that requires you to throw your pack over and climb after. If this was my first day of the hike, I’m sure I’d find it all exciting; coming on trail day #135, some of the thrill is gone.

— Lots of rain the last few days. It’s been nice to have the temp kept down, but walking around wet isn’t much fun.

— Trail Magic has continued up north, despite the predictions and warnings we heard down south. Big thanks to Paddy-O, who parked his truck next to the trail and spend a day dispensing hot dogs, cookies, brownies, sodas, Gatorade, beer, moonshine and who knows what else.

— Spent this morning up on top of Bear Mountain, drying my gear out and singing Bob Dylan’s “Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre,” which has been in my head for 3 days now. It’s a great song; I think my favorite Dylan tune.

— A couple other important landmarks today: the oldest sections of trail, unchanged since the trail was started in 1923, as well as the lowest point on the trail, on the west end of the Bear Mountain Bridge (just 120 feet above sea level). The trail also goes through a crappy little zoo here – it’s kind of depressing after seeing bears in the wild, to see them penned up in a concrete enclosure.

— Dropping this in the mail from Fort Montgomery; with a little bit of luck, I can get resupplied and get over to a monastery on the east side tonight.