Week 11 Update – AT Flip-Flop

 

Southbound Again 

Okay, I’m not southbound ‘again’ I’m southbound for the first time – but it’s a great song by the band Dire Straits. So yes, I’m now heading south to Georgia and the southern terminus, Springer Mountain! But that is more than 1300 miles away so I’ll be focusing on some shorter-term goals.

Saw this inspiring message at a post office on the way to Hoyt Rd to start my southbound trek!

it’s for real, on Tuesday, September 3rd I started walking south to Georgia!

 

Days out Total Days Start/End Miles
1 69 Hoyt Rd to Stealth Site by Old Rt 55 14.8
2 70 Stealth Site to Raymond Torrey Shelter  17
3 71 Raymond Torrey Shelter to Hemlock Springs Campsite  18
4 72 Hemlock Springs Campsite to Island Pond Campsite  21.8
5 73 Island Pond Campsite to RT 17A/Greenwood Lake 13.8
6 74 RT17A/Greenwood Lake to Wawayanda Shelter  10.1
Total for week 95.5
Total for trip 833.6

Big news of the week – besides being southbound, I passed the 800 mile mark for the trip! And, I completed my sixth state, New York. I now have eight states left to go and expect to finish New Jersey sometime this week which will leave me with seven to go. But I get ahead of myself. 

This is new in NY, little libraries at some of the shelters

The Raymond Torrey Shelter, Fahnestock State Park, NY

Let’s talk about New York. I love New York as the song goes. Just not the AT part of the state. The trail is not particularly well-maintained.  It’s not particularly well-blazed at times leading to a few off-trail incidents – meaning hiking a few minutes and realizing I’m not on the trail anymore and needing to backtrack. The shelters are few, far-between, old, and most don’t have water. (It’s not a surprise I only spent one night in a shelter in NY and that wasn’t even an official AT shelter but part of a  state park!) And, despite it not being Pennsylvania, at times it tried to act like it throwing lots of rocks my way.

Native Landscapes is a gardening center right on the AT. It also caters to hikers – free showers, water, trash, charging, and drinks and ice cream for sale.

pizza and deli stop day 2! Pizza for lunch and pack out a sub sandwich for dinner!

To be fair, NY did live up to its reputation for ‘deli-blazing’ meaning pretty much every day the AT in NY brought you by a deli, food truck, pizza place, convenience store, and often more than one! So, I entered NY with five freeze-dried dinners and I left NY with the same five freeze-dried dinners! The pizzas, subs, burgers, and sandwiches were great replacements! 

this deli and market is right on the AT before you cross the Hudson River

crossing the Hudson on the Bear Mountain Bridge

Top Dogs just as the AT crosses into Greenwood Lake

Another great thing about NY is it brought me through the town of Greenwood Lake where my nephew Ethan and his wife Taylor and family live. Bad timing award, I was in Greenwood Lake when they were away on vacation for the week, but they wonderfully opened up their home to me the night I was passing through anyways! Thank you so much for the shower, laundry, warm dry place to sleep, and especially some great time with their cats!

New York City skyline as seen from Bear Mountain in Harriman State Park

So, what’s southbound like? Very, very different from my NOBO trek! First off, I have to get used to using my maps and guides ‘backwards.’ And, I need to learn to stop responding ‘heading to Maine’ anymore as was my common refrain in June and July. Now I’m ‘heading to Georgia’ as I’m getting used to saying. 

But the two biggest differences are the empty trail and the dry rivers and streams. It’s like I left a very vibrant NOBO culture and entered one of solitude AND there’s no water! to boot! Heading north, you constantly passed and were passed by people hiking north. And, the occasional southbounder. Here, there are no NOBOs as they’re all well passed and there are very few SOBOs. This week I have seen just three SOBO thru-hikers and several weekend and section hikers. I understand there are some more SOBOs ahead and behind, but it’s sure not the hiker party it was in New Hampshire and Maine. 

This very dry river once was a big raging river that washed out the bridge!

As to the water, suffice it to say I bought another 1-liter bottle this week so I can carry more water between water sources. Most streams and rivers here are bone dry or have just a trickle of not particularly appealing water-like substances. So you need to read FarOut comments closely and plan to camp near a good water source to avoid having to carry too much. There’s a line from an old English drinking song that comes to mind: ‘a pints a pound the whole-world round’ or something like that! Water is the heaviest thing I carry – many pints and pounds in my backpack!

we read FarOut comments that a person was still maintaining a water cache at Hoyt Rd but it was often empty. We showed up with 6 gallons to add

Another new thing, so far at least, is that since there are very few thru-hikers, all the trail angels seem to have closed up shop for the season! There have been a couple of water caches at road crossings, but that’s been it. I’ve been making up my own trail magic at all the roadside delis – hopefully this will continue into New Jersey!

NY has some beauty too!

On top of that, it’s getting cold at night. Like mid to upper 40s! So I’m layering up and anxiously awaiting meeting up with Laura next week to swap my summer quilt and base layers for some warmer ones. But I can’t complain about the weather. It’s been beautiful- mostly sunny, nice breezes, and not too warm during the day. And a nice way to wrap up my first week as a southbounder today, I got to the shelter early enough to catch the Patriots pull off a win for their first game of the season!

Controversy alert! Imagine the government telling people to get shots for the good of the group! Maybe Fox News should look into this George Washington person! (heavy sarcasm)

Well that’s it for now. Preview time, I’ll be checking in next time from northern Pennsylvania, so get ready for some good ‘rock’ talk!

Some more views from this past week in New York

The Bear Mountain Inn in Harriman State Park

The Bear Mountain Inn isn’t a deli but they serve a good breakfast! And I bought a sandwich to go for dinner!

How dry is it? This is Fitzgerald Falls. It’s usually 25 feet high. Only a trickle of water now.

A new, New York friend. A four-foot-long black rat snake

I like this friend better! The first red eft I’ve seen since Vermont!

Another state bites the dust!

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