Day 119
Start: Stealth Site
End: Stealth Site
Miles Hiked: 22.0
Miles on AT: 1383.1
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I woke up after yesterday’s shower to a beautiful misty morning. The sun peeked over the mountain ridge and cast a yellow glow over the grassy area. My first task of the morning was to tackle the steep, rocky climb to Pinwheels Vista. I’m never super energetic in the morning, so completing that 700 ft climb first thing was a bit of a challenge for me. I had to take lots of breaks, but when I got to the top, the view was worth it. I could see clear across to western NJ and the mountains I had traversed these past couple of days.
Further along the trail was a mailbox with a trail register where I noticed a few familiar names. I love reading trail registers because they help me feel connected to the other hikers that are out there. Yes, there are often many names that I don’t recognize, but I can follow people I’ve met before that have passed me or look forward to meeting someone whose name I’ve repeatedly noticed in the log book. It’s an analog hiker social media if you will.
Further on, I ran into Skittles and Miles. They had done the climb last night in the rain, but luckily didn’t get too wet.
Today was going to be a big day; it was time to officially enter NY and leave NJ for good. I had enjoyed my time in NJ, especially the state park and lake from a couple of days ago. It was a short state, but very memorable.
I continued on my hike and just before I was going to stop for lunch, something caught the corner of my eye. I was mindlessly hiking along, listening to an audiobook on China and not paying much attention to the trail. When I saw the quick streak of black out of the corner of my left eye, I looked and gasped. A bear! Not only that, but she had 3, yes 3, cubs with her. It took me a while to count them all because two of them were perched in the trees above me. Luckily for me, the mom wasn’t aggressive and seemed more preoccupied with making sure all of her babies were corralled in one area. I quickly moved along, thinking she was probably just as startled by me as I had been of her.
With that excitement out of the way, I had lunch and hiked a few more miles, then found myself in New York! Wooo! New state! The border crossing left a lot to be desired, but a huge American flag stood not too far away on a huge boulder.
The intro to NY wasn’t easy. There was a lot of scrambling up and over piles of boulders. I found it pretty fun, a change of pace from just regular hiking (although I did come to miss flat trail by the end of the day).
Around 4 pm, I reached a road crossing that was twice as good (if not more) than any other road crossing. There was a hiker friendly hot dog stand AND a creamery with ice cream. I’m not usually a hot dog person, but with hiker hunger, almost anything goes. After my stop at the hot dog stand, I got ice cream and chatted with two hikers I had seen back on Unionville. They had just got back on trail after a week or two off and were re-adjusting to trail life.
The day was growing late and I wanted to make good miles today, but I was feeling a little tired. I figured that was my cue to go before I didn’t want to hike at all. The next few miles were relatively easy, but I did end up night hiking a bit to find a suitable camping spot.
I hate setting up my tent and getting ready for bed in the dark. I try to avoid night hiking when possible, but sometimes it just happens. Not only did I have to do everything in the dark, I had to fight the bugs that were attracted to my headlamp and not get too scared by the 2 pairs of eyes I saw staring at me from the darkness.
In the end, I got my food hung up, tent set up, and was able to get to bed without any mosquitos in my tent. I would call that a win.
And that’s day 119.
A version of this post originally appeared on TheTrek.co.