Month: July 2018 (Page 2 of 3)

Having grown up in Germantown, NY, hiking into New York was like a coming home.  While the trail does not really go through my old stomping grounds, it does pass some of the icons of my childhood.  The Hudson River, which was less than a mile from where I grew up, would be the first such landmark.

First view of the Hudson River

View of the Hudson from Bear Mountain

Crossing the Hudson on the Bear Mountain Bridge

Two other sentimental milestones were crossing US Route 9 and the Taconic State Parkway, both of which pass pretty close to my childhood home.

Welcome Home!

Crossing under the Taconic State Parkway

The AT takes a northeasterly path across the southern tier of New York State.  The mountains in this region are less than 1500 feet of elevation, but are relatively rugged, having been carved up by erosion.  The glaciers have left a labyrinth of rocky cliffs, outcroppings, shallow gullies, lakes, and swamps.

Solid rock

“The Lemon Squeezer”

Most impressive to me was the quantity and variety of the wetlands.

Mountain swamp

Another swamp…

The Great Swamp

Mountain pond formed with help from the beavers

Island Pond

Ironically, considering all the lakes and swamps, availability of water was an issue on some sections of trail in southern New York.  With the dry summer weather, even some sources listed in the trail guide as “reliable” were found to be dry.  On one particularly “dry” day, I was muling just enough water to reach camp, but not enough to totally quench my thirst.  Imagine my gratefulness and delight in discovering liquid “trail magic” at three road crossings.  This was a lot of work for some trail angel.

Trail Magic

In Pawling, NY, I passed the Dover Oak, the largest tree on the AT, having a 22-foot circumference.  The second largest was the Keffer Oak that I passed back in Virginia.  My favorite tree was neither of these but another huge oak, right next to the trail, just a few miles before the Dover Oak.

Dover Oak

Keffer Oak

My favorite oak – Right out of The Hobbit?

Over the last several hundred miles, I am no longer coming across the “full service hiker towns” that were common farther south.  Such towns would have hostels, one-star motels, laundromats, grocery stores, and sometimes an outfitter.  While the towns in the North still seem friendly to hikers, they tend to be villages with maybe a restaurant or two plus a convenience store.  Lodging, if available, is pricy by hiker standards.

To deal with this situation, hikers diligently study their trail guides looking for food, resupply, and lodging options.  Sometimes one can find a restaurant or small grocery that is not “in town” but is within walking distance of a road crossing.  I am always on the lookout for tenting options “with amenities”.  Here are examples of such tenting opportunities of which I have taken advantage.

• Free tenting at the town pavilion/playground in Unionville, NY – Portalets.  Two blocks from a pizza parlor and general store.
• Free tenting at the Franciscan’s Graymoor Spiritual Life Center – Portalets, Outdoor shower (cold), and wash basin for hand-washing clothes.
• Free tenting at Fahnestock State Park – Bathrooms with hot showers and flush toilets.

Since laundry opportunities are less frequent, I have lately been resorting hand washing.  Typically, I only do a couple of items at a time, say, socks and underwear.  I wash them under a spigot or in a stream, then hang them off my pack to dry while I hike.

This foundation is a part of a colonial barn which served as an inoculation station for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

Revolutionary War Inoculation Camp

In a bold move, General Washington had ordered his entire army to be inoculated.  To perform the procedure, doctors would make an incision in a soldier’s arm, then introduce fluids from an open sore on another infected soldier.  This normally resulted in a much milder case of the disease with a speedier recovery and a lower fatality rate of about 2%.  This may not sound like great odds, but Washington judged that this was better than letting the disease run rampant through his troops.

I continue to pursue the birds with my camera.  This is a bird I have been seeing lately along the  trail.

Eastern Phoebe

In honor of the New York swamps, I will stick with an aquatic theme for my flora and fauna.  I photographed these two dragonflies, not realizing that they were male and female of the same species.

Eastern Pondhawk (male)

Eastern Pondhawk (female)

Leopard Frog

They say that Claude Monet had an obsession for painting lilies, but Mother Nature is the real master.

mosaïque de lys

deuxième mosaïque de lys

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I have now completed the 72 miles of the Appalachian Trail that traverses New Jersey.  To enter the state from Pennsylvania, one must cross the Delaware Water Gap which separates the two states.  This gap was formed by Delaware River which over millions of years cut a slot right through the Kittatiny Ridge.

Delaware River

After hiking down the ridge on the Pennsylvania side, I entered New Jersey by crossing the I-80 bridge across the Delaware River.  Fortunately, there is a sidewalk, but I couldn’t help noticing that the bridge would shake whenever a semi rolled past.

Crossing the Delaware on I-80

State line on the sidewalk

After crossing the river, it was right back up the ridge.  Same ridge, same rocks, but much better views from the top.

Delaware River viewed from the ridge

I took a short side trail up to High Point, which, at 1802 feet, is the highest point in the Garden State.  On top, there is a 220 foot obelisk which honors war veterans.

High Point

Looking up at the obelisk

The next day, I hiked up a section of trail nicknamed “the stairway to heaven” to an outcropping on Wawayanda Mountain. From this overlook, I could see the High Point monument in distance.  Seeing the obelisk now looking so tiny, it was hard to believe that it was only 24 hours ago that I was at its base.

Looking back towards High Point

Hiking through New Jersey, I was treated to see an abundance of ponds and wetlands.

Sunfish Pond

Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge

Many of the wetter sections of the trail have wooden walkways so you don’t have to slog through the mud.

Walking the plank through the wetlands

My absolute favorite section of the AT in New Jersey was the 1.5-mile-long Pochuck Boardwalk which meanders through the floodplain of the Pochuck Creek.  The boardwalk is an engineering marvel.  Supposedly it was 24 years from vision to reality and took seven years and $800,000 to build.  It appears to be a favorite of the locals as there were about 30 cars lining the road at the trailhead.

Pochuck Boardwalk

View from the boardwalk

This is a sampling of the wildlife that I saw from the boardwalk.

Red-winged Blackbird

Great Blue Heron

Turtles playing hopscotch

I have been seeing and hearing Pileated Woodpeckers regularly on the trail since North Carolina.  They are the largest woodpecker in North America, but everything about these birds impressed me.  Whether pecking on a tree or flying through the woods, (the way I most often encounter them), they are a sight to behold.  They have a distinctive call which sounds like something right out of the rainforest.  When you get several of the birds in one area, they make a heck of a racket in the woods.  I was delighted the other day when one of the males let me take his photo. (Only the males have the red cheek stripe.)

Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker tearing the wood

Other flora and fauna…

Water Lily

Banded Hairstreak

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The Appalachian Trail passes within about fifteen miles of Pottsville, Pennsylvania.  Months ago, upon learning this fact, I marked this as a town I would visit during my hike.  For those unaware, Pottsville is the home of the Yuengling Brewery.  I have been a fan of the beer for years.  When you roll into town, it doesn’t take long to see that brewery is a big deal to the home folks.  As evidence of this, the “Welcome to Pottsville” sign is subtitled “Home of Yuengling’s”.

Brewing in this building since 1831

The brewery tours departs hourly from the gift shop.  Like a true tourist, I bought a hat and a bottle opener, which I had shipped home.  The tour was interesting to me because they have a good story to tell.  I’ve seen plenty of stainless steel vats, so seeing the equipment didn’t interest me as much as hearing the history.

David Yuengling emigrated to the United States in 1828 and founded the business one year later.  After the original brewery burned down, he rebuilt at the present location in 1831.  He picked the location because it lent itself to digging a cave into the hillside and also for its proximity to a natural spring.  Ironically, the brewery sets directly adjacent to the Church of Saint Patrick, both buildings being among the oldest in Pottsville.

The Yuengling Cave

They continue to brew beer in this building, although today the cave only functions as a tour stop.  The brewery is now run by Richard Yuengling, the fifth generation of Yuengling to own the business.  At age 75, he is still working, and is frequently seen around the brewery.  He has four daughters, all active in the business.  Two of them kept the Yuengling name when they married, and the other two went with hyphenated names.  In any case, the Yuengling name will live on.

Randy enjoying a taste

During the fourteen years of Prohibition, Yuengling survived by brewing non-alcohol and low-alcohol beers.  When Prohibition ended in 1933, Yuengling sent a truckload of its celebratory “Winner Beer” to Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House.

Another small town that the AT passes right through is Port Clinton.  The town is the home of the Port Clinton Barber Shop, which has a reputation of being “hiker-friendly”.  My hair had gotten pretty long such that without my hat and needing a shower, I could resemble an escapee from some institution.  I decided to give the barber a go.

Barber Shop Ambiance

The Port Clinton Barber Shop has kind of a hipster vibe, looking like a cross between a salon, coffee shop, and second hand store.  Frank, the owner, describes it as a “poor man’s country club”.  There were several guitars sitting around so if you had the talent and were so inclined, you could serenade the other patrons.  Frank, a musician himself, says once a month he has a band come in so you can listen to live music while getting your hair cut.

Haircuts are $8, flattops $12. With Johnny Cash playing in the background, I opted for the regular haircut.  While cutting my hair, Frank said he was a little short-handed that day, so his 92-year-old dad was helping out.  I noticed that his dad would do a haircut, then sit down for a while to rest, then call up the next customer.  Frank said his clients come to his shop from all over, which must be true since Port Clinton has only  317 residents.

Port Clinton Barber Shop

Randy sporting his new cut

By now, I have completed the entire section of the Appalachian Trail that passes through Pennsylvania.  I would be lying I didn’t say that I am happy to see the end of that state.  The last 160 miles of trail in Pennsylvania follows the spine of the Kittatinny Ridge.  On the ridge, water was hard to come by and the scenery rarely changed.  To fetch water at the shelters, it was typical to have to hike a quarter to a third of a mile down the side of the ridge to reach a spring, then mule the water back up to camp.  One day, there was a 17-mile stretch between shelters with no water sources, so I ended up carrying four liters of water (almost 9 pounds) in the 90 degree heat.  Fortunately, the more water I drank, the lighter my pack became.

And then, there are the famous Pennsylvania rocks.  As far as I can tell, the Kittatinny Ridge is one big giant pile of rocks, with a thin covering of soil and vegetation.  Let me paraphrase Doctor Seuss to describe how I feel about the rocks.

Do you like rocks?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like giant boulders to scramble over and around?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like the slippery, slanted slabs that try to make you fall and break a leg?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like large rocks on which you can hop rock to rock?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like medium rocks that teeter and totter under your feet?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like small rocks that line the path like a bed of nails?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like boulders in the trail through which you weave your feet like a sweeper on a curling team?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like the small, sharp rocks that stick out of the mud like dragon’s teeth and try to trip you or stab you in the foot?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Do you like the submerged rocks that bend your tent stakes?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I do not like giant boulders to scramble over and around.
I do not like the slippery, slanted slabs that try to make me fall and break a leg.
I do not like large rocks on which I can hop rock to rock.
I do not like medium rocks that teeter and totter under my feet.
I do not like small rocks that line the path like a bed of nails.
I do not like boulders in the trail through which I weave my feet like a sweeper on a curling team.
I do not like the small, sharp rocks that stick out of the mud like dragon’s teeth and try to trip me or stab me in the foot.
I do not like the submerged rocks that bend my tent stakes.
I do not like rocks.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Here is are some pictures from my “rock collection”.

I have been seeing Indigo Buntings since the  Carolinas.  It was only the other day the I captured a photo of the female to go along with my photo of the male.  This is another case where the male is strikingly colored with the female having a much more subdued appearance.

Indigo Bunting (Male)

Indigo Bunting (Female)

Other flora and fauna…

Bee Balm

Large Snapping Turtle in the trail

Rattlesnake in the trail

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