A few kids left early, and a few were hanging around. One Life, Scatters, TC and MacGuyver went over to the diner for breakfast while I took care of some emailing and blogging and ate out of my food bag. When they got back, we finished up and headed out at 10am. One Life was lucky enough to get a ride with Gene back to NJ where he'd hiked to yesterday by mistake. Gene would then be heading back to Alabama for a while to take a break from trail angel-ing. We'll miss you, Gene!
Scatters and I hiked across the long [moving] bridge over the Delaware river, and caught up with One Life before beginning the nicely graded ascent. Sweet Tea, MacGuyver, Beaver Chief, and Dumba$$ were around too. Then we ran into Red Stick and later Serenetina, LJ and Red Lobstah. Great big group!! We all leap-frogged each other all day.
New Jersey is quite pretty in these parts!! I has no idea... We were down by a lake for a bit, then up on a ridge. Then we stopped for a break and the leader of a camp brought us over some apples and oranges! Sweet!! Then there were some rocks, and then a fire tower. A bunch of us climbed it to take photos and when MacGuyver came down to get her pack, she was frightened by a big ole rattlesnake on the trail!! I had made a note yesterday to mention snakes in today's blog. I keep hearing loads of stories about people seeing rattle snakes and copperheads (Deetz STEPPED on one a week ago?!), but I had only seen a few large black snakes. I was ok with that, just wanted to note it. But now I had finally seen a rattler! Luckily, MacGuyver was ok (no strike), and a few of us got a few photos. Mine are on my camera, but I'll try to remember to post them if I get on a computer sometime soon.
Onwards. Lots of blueberry bushes on the trail. There must have been a fair or something going on in the valley. We heard a loudspeaker and people, and we smelled fried food (torture), but we couldn't see much from the hills. Then we saw another rattle snake just off the trail. Luckily AGAIN we escaped unharmed. Two in one day?!?! In New Jersey?! We continued on until stopping for a snack by a sign that said No Camping Next 4 Miles. It was almost 8pm, and we didn't want to night hike, but we wanted to go on a bit further. Could we make it 4 miles by dark dark...?
No. But the sky stayed light for a while. We were all avoiding getting out our headlamps, and we kept on trucking through the fuzzy half light. I was leading at this point and we were moving fast. That is, until I saw the sillouette of a young bear about 15 yards ahead on the trail. Scatters and One Life caught up quickly, and the bear slowly walked into the woods to the left. We started to continue in the trail, assuming the bear kept walking, but then we heard another one, a bigger one, in the trees to our RIGHT. Time for headlamps!!
We backtracked a few yards and got out our lights. We made noise and tried to see where they were, but we didn't want to get in between a mother and her cub. After the twig-breaking noises seemed to be going away from the trail, we slowly started up again and powered through (at a quickened pace!) until we were in the clear. Adlenaline levels: high.
We were looking for anywhere to camp, but it was all rocky or slanted. It was dark now. Our feet hurt. We were tired. Finally we came upon a spot that would work and we set up. Dinner in the dark. Lots bugs around the headlamps. And we had to hang a bear bag (obvi). Now it's really late, and I'm drifting off. Another big day tomorrow...?
Shout out to Xan and Brian's families!! I'm hoping to catch those guys tomorrow... Hopefully!
And Tim, I blog it all out with an application on my iPhone. The Blogger app. It's been great, and I can't believe I've gotten so used to typing so much on this thing!!
(21.6mi 10st)
-- Posted from the trail...
1 comment:
See, the "Dirty Jerz" ain't so bad minus the snakes/bears. We just get a bad rap!! xo
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