Taking Flight

I was the first person awake on the morning of Day 4. I tried to start getting ready without waking Parched and Bass Clef, but they eventually woke up. I wanted to get a fairly early start on this day, because I knew it was going to be a tough day. The FarOut app said that it was going to be 14.4 miles and more than 3,700 feet of gain to the next shelter. Amazingly, there was no option for a stop in-between. The only choice was to push forward to Fingerboard, the next shelter. Unfortunately, Parched still wasn't feeling well. His stomach was still bothering him enough that he couldn't keep down much food. This left him unable to eat breakfast, and it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to hike very far without calories. Both because he didn't eat breakfast, and because he's just a faster packer than me, he got out quite a few minutes before I did despite the fact that I woke up first. When I left, I said goodbye to Bass Clef and told him that I would see him a...

I can't say that I was well rested upon waking up in the Appalachian Motel. The beds weren't comfortable and I didn't sleep especially well. That said, at least I was able to get a morning shower, which is always a plus. After Parched and I checked out, we went to the Crystal Cafe for breakfast. This place was an absolute winner. The service was quick and friendly, the food was delicious, the atmosphere was nice, and the prices were more than fair. I especially enjoyed the strawberry/banana smoothie that I had with my breakfast. Once that was finished, we drove towards the trailhead. The original plan was to start from the Wawayanda State Park headquarters, but Parched didn't like the fact that the place was gated and had hours. There was a concern that we might not be able to get out when we finished, or that we might not be able to leave a car overnight, so we ended up parking at a nearby roadside trailhead instead. The trailhead was a bit buggy, so I was more than ha...

I love east-facing shelters. There's nothing like sitting up in bed and looking right at the sunrise. Thankfully, Telephone Pioneers was an east-facing shelter. It brought back memories of Puffer Shelter on the Long Trail, which was similarly east-facing. It was a spectacular way to wake up. I took it easy getting going this morning. Parched told me that he wasn't going to be able to meet me until around 2 PM, and I figured that the morning hike would take me roughly 5 or 6 hours. Thus, I figured there was no need to rush out of camp before 7 AM, or I would just end up waiting. Thus, I took my time getting out of camp, and hiked relatively slowly (for me). It was a relatively chilly morning, and I appreciated that. The perfect hiking temperature is probably right around 55. A temperature of 45 can feel a little chilly, and 65 and above is definitely getting too warm for comfort, especially on uphills. I was feeling good, which was comforting considering that the day before I we...

Last year Parched and I attempted to hike the AT section through half of New York. We were not successful. My plan was over ambitious and, as quickly became clear, unrealistic. We started at Bear Mountain. Parched made it to the RPH shelter and then went back for the car, while I pushed on to Hosner Mountain Road. This was another mistake on my part. Hosner Mountain Road doesn’t have parking, so it was a dumb place to stop. All of this combined made this year’s hike difficult to plan. The goal for this year was to clean up all of New York. Parched and I put together a plan where I would drive down on Sunday, hike 25 miles on Monday, and then meet up with Parched afterwards. We would then set up a car spot for the second section (the more southerly section), and hike that on Tuesday through Thursday. However, you might notice that this entry corresponds to Sunday, not Monday. There’s a good reason for that. I quickly determined that 25 miles was unrealistic, so I realized that I needed ...

For the past year or more, Dragonfly and her cousin Hummingbird have been working on completing the Belknap grid. The Belknaps are a group of mountains in the 2000’ range in southern New Hampshire. Completing a grid means hiking every mountain in a particular range in every single month of the year, though it doesn’t need to be the same year. In other words, you must hike every Belknap in January, every Belknap in February, and so on. With twelve official Belknap peaks, that means hiking 144 peaks total, not counting repeats. There were a fair number of repeats because Dragonfly needed to complete some peaks that Hummingbird already had, and also the reverse. This hike on Mt Rowe was to be the big finisher. They had 143, and just needed Rowe in February to finish. Because of that, we decided to make it a big family hike. Parched and his wife (Dragonfly’s sister) came up from Connecticut, and I came from Maine. Thankfully, the day was beautiful. I brought a relatively light pack, much l...