End of Summer Hike 2006 Culver
Lake, NJ to Greenwood
Lake, NY
I did not change my gear except I decided that even in cold
weather that I’d leave the snowsuit at home and replace it with a Marmot
sleeping bag. The weather would have to
pretty darn extreme for a hiker to wear a snowsuit comfortably. Too much energy and sweat is created while
hiking. In any case, this was a summer
hike, so the snowsuit was definitely out.
I packed additional water because of my past experience of running out
of water on my last hike. I bought a
new/smaller digital camera to cut down on pack weight.
Day 1:
I had my son drop me off where I left off on Rt. 206 near Culver
Lake. It was foggy and
drizzling out. I was a little frustrated
because I realized that I left my new camera at home. I bought the camera just for this hike. But it made no sense to go back and get
it. So I said goodbye to John and
started hiking north in a light rain. Right away I crossed paths with a
few SOBO hikers. We exchanged waves and hellos. It remained foggy and rainy all day. I was wearing shorts, a quilted long-sleeve
shirt and a t-shirt and hiking boots with gaiters. As I warmed up, I took off the quilted shirt. As I approached Sunrise
Mountain it became a little colder
and the rain increased. So I donned the
quilted shirt and a poncho. I reached
the top of Sunrise Mountain
in a pretty dense fog. There was an old
pavilion dating back to the CCC days. I
sat down and enjoyed being free of a backpack and being out of the rain for a
few minutes. There was no cool view to
see because I was surrounded by the thick fog.
I met another SOBO hiker, but he didn’t want to talk. That’s ok, it was
that kind of day. I could see that he
was thinking hard about something or was just plain tired. I passed by the Gren
Anderson Shelter. I hiked 5.8 additional
miles to the Mashipacong Shelter. The last couple of miles were pretty
rough. My left knee was really hurting
from the pounding of the extra water weight that I was carrying and the famous
NJ/PA rocks. It was pretty foggy. My headlamp just lit up the fog in front of
me. Much of the light
from the headlamp refracted into my glasses. So I had a tough time seeing in the
dark. I was drinking a lot of the water,
just to get rid of the weight. By the
time I came to the clearing for the shelter I was hobbling at a very slow pace
in the pitch dark. It was great that the
shelter was dead smack on the AT. There
was no missing it! I set up my gear in
the shelter. I was all alone. I had fun reading the spiral bound notebook
left in the shelter. One entry ( a couple of weeks old ) was about seeing bears. I wasn’t too happy about that one. Some older ones talked about the heat and
lack of water. I remember those days a
month or so earlier. One entry caught my
attention. It was signed by what I
guessed to be a young woman. She signed
her name ( Lauren ) and next to it wrote – “I’ll be
worth a lot of money someday.” She drew
hearts around her signature. As I headed
north, I saw the same hallmark signature and caption in all of the shelter
notebooks. I hope she finds what she
wants. I hope that she discovers that
money isn’t the answer.
I had an interesting night’s sleep. I
was sleeping in my sleeping bag ( with the liner ) and
wearing my bug head netting. So I didn’t
have any mosquito bites. I had hung my
pack over my head and it kept brushing into my sleeping bag during the
night. Each time it bumped into the bag,
I thought that mice might be in my pack.
So I didn’t sleep too soundly. I
also had a tremendous amount of pain in my left knee. It took a lot of effort to even roll
over. I was very worried about whether I
could continue hiking. A very discouraging thought on the first night.
Day 2:
I woke up to the sunrise. I found out
that the shelter was pretty nice by AT standards. There was a modern composting privy next
door. And a steel food lockup box across
the field. I swept the shelter with the
broom that was standing off to the side.
I cooked breakfast - a bunch of oatmeal, with some added vegetable oil,
followed by a cup of hot chocolate in the same pot.
I swung on my pack and hobbled north down the hillside. I had a very difficult time going down the
hill. My knee was really hurting. The trail crossed a county road. I decided to bug-out. I headed east on the road for ¾ of a
mile. As I walked on the smooth pavement
I noticed that my left knee was in less pain.
As I stared at the map, envisioning giving directions to either my son
or my wife, I decided to get back onto the AT.
So I headed back the ¾ mile to the trail. I turned right onto the trail and headed up
the hill. As I walked my knee started to
bother me more ( of course ). But I just kept it straight and just hobbled
along. The rain was pretty constant this
day. But my poncho kept everything
dry. The gaiters were working out very
well. My boots were perfectly dry. I hiked up and down some pretty neat
escarpments. It was annoying that I
couldn’t take any pictures of them. Late
in the afternoon ( 7 miles later ) I came to Rt. 23 in
High Point State Park. I decided that my pack needed some serious
changes to reduce the weight on my knees.
So I called up my son and he came up to pick me up. He wasn’t very happy about it, but he came up
anyway. I hung out at the closed ranger
station under the overhang of the roof.
Made some hot chocolate, changed my clothes.
The ride home was uneventful. I
bought John dinner and paid him for the fuel used to pick me up. I had a pretty tough time sleeping
again. Not the sleeping itself. But the knee really hurt.
Day 3 - a zero day:
I just slept all day. Cool!
Day 4 – another zero day:
I slept late and then drove to Campmor in Paramus. I had a few days to think about what to do
about the pack weight. I decided to shelve
my four pound tent and my five pound cot.
I replaced these items with a 24oz Hammock Bliss (
with mosquito netting ) a pair of 2.5 oz tree straps and a 13 oz 8’*10’
tarp. Those items were lighter and
smaller than my tent and cot so I decided to buy a smaller/lighter weight
pack. I bought a large Gregory
Z-Pack. The pack alone shaved off three
pounds. So with all of the changes, I saved
around nine pounds. That’s pretty
significant. And with the changes I
still maintained my priority of sleeping up off of the ground, having mosquito
netting, and being able to handle sleeping in heavy rains. Very cool!
I spent the rest of the day asleep.
Day 5 – mostly a zero day:
I slept and ate all day. In the
evening I was able to get John to drive me back up Rt. 23 to High
Point State Park. He dropped me off in the dark and I wandered
around the grass field trying to find the AT.
Four deer were watching me and making sounds that I have never heard
from a deer before. Maybe some sort of
challenge? I sure didn’t know. Eventually I found the AT. There was a huge brown sign board pointing to
it. I laughed and started heading north. I was hiking by my headlamp in the dark. It was sort of eerie. When there were breaks in the trees I could
see the High Point Monument
all lit up in a kind of orangy glow from the sodium
lamps that they used to shine on it.
Some of the white AT trail blazes had small reflective white circular
things nailed in the center of each blaze.
That was pretty cool! I found the
observation platform. I went up on the
wooden viewing platform. I had a pretty
good look around. It was a clear night. Got back down and trudged along. The trail curved around the mountain and I
could hear some crazy teenagers off in the distance. I correctly assumed that they were at the
High Point Shelter. So, 1.8 miles from
the road, I wandered down the blue blaze trail to the shelter. I met a group of happy teenagers. They were on an outing together before going
off to college. All
new freshmen. They were silly,
talked to each other about things I didn’t want to hear and are too delicate to
post here, but I didn’t see any signs of drinking or drugs. They truly were nice. One fellow greeted me right away and invited
for me to use the shelter. He explained
that they were all sleeping in tents and just using the shelter for a place to
hang out in. I declined and set up my
hammock close to the shelter. Both me and the guy that greeted me were impressed at how quickly
the hammock was to set up and take down.
I slept very soundly in the hammock.
Day 6:
I got moving pretty quickly in the morning.
Another hot oatmeal breakfast followed by some hot
chocolate. I said goodbye to my
neighbors and headed north. A couple of
hours later I could hear a group of people talking and gradually overtaking me
on the trail. Hearing their laughter I
correctly guessed that these were my companions from the night before. And sure enough, it was them. I exchanged hellos as they passed me. One asked how far did I think
that they hiked so far. I wasn’t
sure. By the time I figured out the
correct answer they were too far away.
Eventually I caught up with them when they stopped to enjoy the sunshine
in a cow field. We took pictures of each
other and I just enjoyed their mood. I
went on my way. I said hi to some
cows. I walked past a farm, where the
dogs barked at me in the distance. I
guess that I made their day. A little
while later my friends passed me again.
It would be our last meeting.
Their turnoff was just up ahead.
I passed a lot of stone walls, remnants of farms from years ago. I kept
thinking about how people had hopes and dreams and kept lugging these rocks out
of the fields to build these walls. Now
only the walls remain. I walked up Wolf
Pit Hill in the hot sun and looked back at the High
Point Monument in
the distance. It felt good to be able to
see my progress. Later on I walked up an
old railroad grade. A
real nice walk. Eventually I
reached a couple of roads ( Oil City Road ) and walked on
these roads to the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge. People were nice as they drove by. Everyone waved and smiled. I could feel blisters developing on my
feet. I met some southbound hikers
walking in pairs. When I got to the
wildlife refuge, I stopped to take care of my feet. I had three blisters. Probably from hiking with
damp socks. I started walking
around the wildlife refuge. I don’t know
what wildlife is in there that is worth preserving, but the refuge is really
just a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I
was happy to be done walking around it and getting back into the woods! The climb up Pochuck Mountain
to the shelter was pretty steep. It took
some effort to climb up there. On the
way up, I could look back at where I’ve hiked for the past couple of days. It felt really good to be able to see where
I’ve been and how tiny the High Point
Monument looked in the
distance. I arrived to the Pochuck Mountain Shelter in the early evening, nobody
home. Darkness was just setting in. Not bad, a 12 mile hike with a bum knee. I cooked a noodle-mix dinner. I spent a fair amount of time sweeping and
cleaning the shelter. I found a bear box
to lock my food and garbage in. I laid
out the hammock onto the shelter floor and hung up the netting lines. This allowed me to sleep away from
mosquitoes. But I don’t think that I
needed to do this. The bugs were ok all
day. My knee felt a little better during
the night. I think there must have been
a quarry pit nearby. Explosions kept
happening at 5 to 20 minute intervals all night long. It didn’t sound like gunfire. Strange, if local
ordinances allow all those night explosions.
Day 7:
I woke up and spent way too long making a hot breakfast. A blue hummingbird came by. I guess it was attracted by the smell. It sounded like the hugest bumblebee that I
have ever heard! I jumped back a couple
of steps, looked up. My foggy brain finally
figured out what it was. I stood
dumbfounded. I only saw one once before ( red ) in Vermont
when I was a child. I then ran to my
pack for my camera. Too late, it was
gone. I took way too long cooking and
eating breakfast. I didn’t get hiking
until 11am. I had a pretty good day hiking though. I walked the boardwalk through the swamp in Vernon. I stopped and checked my feet and swapped
socks when I first got to the boardwalk.
My knee still hurt, but it was manageable. I just kept the left knee out straight all
day and hobbled along. The boardwalk was
pretty cool. It’s long, and ran right
through a swamp. I kept thinking that
this is the one place on the AT where people in wheelchairs can go and say that
they hiked a part of the AT. I stopped
to take pictures of the suspension bridge.
I kept thinking about all the math figures in the image. I might not be teaching then, but once a math
teacher, always a math teacher. About
halfway to the Wawayanda Shelter I met a young male
hiker that was headed to Bear Mountain. He was paranoid about bears. Every couple of minutes he’d bang some
aluminum things together to scare them off.
I didn’t have that problem. My
hiking poles were making a racket! He
passed me pretty quickly because I was hobbling along at a very slow pace. I made the Wawayanda
Shelter after nightfall. It was very
dark. I could see a lot of bats flying
by in the gleam of my headlamp. The
trail approaching the shelter was a dirt road.
Super easy to follow in the dark. There were three people sleeping in the
shelter. Two people were up
talking. One told me that my young
acquaintance ( sleeping ) said that he was followed by
bears to the shelter. I held my tongue
and was thankful that I was talking to people in the dark. One of the two was a
youngish woman who was an experienced hiker, and wisely planning on sleeping in
her tent. The other fellow was pleasant
but seemed to want others to think that he was an experienced hiker. Whatever, I was tired. So I went into the shelter to add my snores
to the others. A few minutes after I
climbed into my sleeping bad, tropical storm Ernesto hit. Boy, was I glad to be
in the shelter!
Day 8:
I woke up first. My young, bear
loving, acquaintance got up and was on the trail first. The two others were up and tightly wrapped up
in raincoats and rainpants and with their backpacks
on. They had all high-tech gear. One had a weather report on his cellphone. It said
that the storm veered off - unfortunately, this wasn’t true. I watched them walk off north shaking my
head. They’ll be dripping in sweat
within five minutes in those rainsuits. I set off behind them a little while
later. I wasted some time getting fresh
water and dropping off some garbage at the Wawayanda Visitor
Center. As I walked I followed the footsteps of the
two guys. They were pretty easy to see
in the mud. I passed a bunch of logs
that looked like huge versions of “Lincoln Logs.” As the hours went by I could see that the two
guys must have given up the trail. No
more foot prints. I should have noticed
that the experienced female hiker stayed in her tent. She was the smart one. The rain kept up all day. As I started up Wawayada Mountain
I met a guy walking his two dogs down the mountain. He told me the same weather report - that the
storm veered and we were not going to be much effected. After a lot of effort, I made it up to the
top of Wawayanda
Mountain. By then Ernesto was in full force. Great timing!
I spent three and half hours scrambling up and down rock faces on top of
that mountain in the gusty wind and rain.
I wasn’t happy about it. I had a
lot of things to say about the people that routed the trail in this
region! Lots of ups
and downs, always reaching to the peaks.
This would have been interesting in nice weather, but in these
conditions, it was downright dangerous.
When I got down off of the mountain I walked ¼ mile past a blue-blaze
trail that led to the north end of Greenwood
Lake. As I trudged along I thought that I was still
walking in the middle of a tropical storm and I had no idea if the next ridge
would place me up high exposed to the winds and rain. I still had a little over two miles to go to
get to the Wildcat Shelter. By then, my
boots had soaked through. I was still
using the large poncho that fit my larger pack and it kept blowing around
exposing this smaller pack to the elements.
I decided to hike back to the blue blaze trail and hike down to Greenwood
Lake. So I hiked down to the lake and then hike
south to the New Jersey end of
the lake. My wife and son had a copy of
a Passaic County, NJ map and I figured they would be able to find me if I
called from some restaurant from down at that end of the lake. I wasn’t confident that they would be able to
understand that they could follow the same road up into NY without a map. So to avoid that hassle I spent a very long
time hiking along side the lake going south.
About a mile or so from the end a woman saw my stagger and gave me a
ride for the rest of the way to an Italian restaurant. Trail Magic strikes again! From there I called my family for a ride home
and then enjoyed ordering a Chicken Parmesan dinner with pasta, fresh salad,
and a glass of root beer! It was
wonderful to be in that place. I was
seated at a clean table, the room was warm and
dry. I had a fresh salad. That alone was incredible to me. Soon I had a plate of hot food in front of
me. No stoves to light, cooking to do,
pots to clean and I was sitting in comfort.
It was very strange to listen to the waitresses and waiters talk to each
other - it was a slow night. They had
the TV on in the pizzeria section. Music
was playing in the restaurant section.
My senses were overwhelmed. I was
experiencing culture shock from only spending four days alone in the
woods. Eventually my wife arrived to
drive me home.
The hike down the length of Greenwood Lake was far longer than the hike to
the Wildcat Shelter, but it was a good choice to get off of the trail because I
had no idea what the weather conditions would turn into and I had no idea how
exposed the remaining two miles were. In
hindsight, it would have worked out if I stayed on the trail. But it was a wise decision to get off of the
trail. My wife later told me that the
local radio and TV stations updated the weather reports to include information
about the gusty winds and rain. So I
decided to buy a small AM/FM/Weather radio for future hikes.
Things that I learned from this hike:
I must waterproof my boots after they have dried from being in the
rain. My gear changes were good
ideas. Reducing the weight did make my
left knee more comfortable. Water weighs
about two pounds per liter. I need to
come up with a plan of carrying less water.
It was time to purchase a water filtering system. If the filter weighed around a pound, then I
could reduce my water weight from 7 liters to 3 or four liters. That’s a weight reduction of five to seven
pounds. That would place my pack weight
in the mid to upper twenty pounds. With
that weight savings I could pack a second pair of walking boots, shoes, or sandals
and swap footwear every hour. If I do
this and hang the previously used footwear and socks from my pack to air out,
then my feet will stay nice and dry.
That should save me from getting blisters. I decided to use one of the scales in the
science dept. at school and weigh every item to carefully tailor down my pack
weight. I switched back to using a
smaller poncho that matched up better with the smaller pack. I added grommets to the edges of that poncho
years ago to be able to stitch it up in windy conditions. It’s also more useful as a tarp.
My original plans were to hike to the Hudson
River, but the tropical storm disrupted that. Or just as important, my decision to hike in
that storm disrupted my plans. It would
have been wiser to duplicate that experienced hiker’s plan of just plain
sleeping in that day and go hiking the next day. I’m sure she made it to her destination. The other inexperienced hikers didn’t make it
beyond an hour or so of hiking. I made
it through the day. I’m sure that she
wisely slept through the whole mess and went on for several days like she
planned.
I'm planning on hiking NOBO from Springer
Mountain in Georgia
starting June 24th. My wife bought me a water filtration system, so I can
cut down my water weight a bunch. As stated above, I weighed every item
in my pack and I’m fine tuning it. I
made a slightly heavier, but more sturdy and compact windscreen/pot stand out
of an old Dinty Moore Stew can for my alcohol
stove. I later made an improved
windscreen based upon the stew can design.
The new one duplicates the dimensions but instead is made out of
aluminum flashing and two button snaps.
It is stored by rolling it up inside my cook pot. I’ve decided to make a backup cooking gear
and other items to be labeled and packed away for mail-drops in case I need
replacements on my big hike.
2/4/2006 I bought a 1982
VW Westfalia Vanagon
camper. This might work out well with future hiking trips. It needs a lot of
work. It’s positively ugly. The paint is an orange/brown. Real faded. Some
rust. Not too bad. The headlights don’t work, there’s a diesel fuel leak. None of the interior lights work. The ignition switch is
flaky. It came with no keys. Fairly new tires. The
pop-up top has some mildew damage on one seam. And it is undoubtedly the
SLOWEST vehicle I have ever driven. It cruises at 45mph. It’s screaming at
55mph. On a flat it has a top speed of 62mph. It can climb any hill in 2nd
gear, but 2nd gear tops out at 15mph. A moped has better
acceleration.
Mike and I pulled it home on Mike’s flatbed trailer 2/4/06. I replaced the headlight switch and got it
running a week or two later. Right now ( 2/20/06 )
I’m waiting for the fuel injector pump to be reinstalled. That’s where the fuel
leak was coming from.