Heat Waves Been Fakin Me Out
Day 94:
Ok, back to journalism. Let’s see if I remember how to do this. I woke up early. But I wasn’t that update about it, because a) I slept in my own bed (it was great), and b) it was so I could get a bagel sandwich. So so so worth it. Lindsey and I went down to the bagel store, and after a bit of a debacle (Lindsey literally asked if they had EGGS), we got our sandwiches and went back to eat them. So good. 10/10. I’ve missed me a good bagel sandwich. We hit the road around 8.
I conked out on the drive back to the trail. I have no idea why, but I was really REALLY tired. Which is weird cause I got 2 good nights of sleep. But anyway after saying bye to my dad, we ended up back on the trail around 9:30. New Jersey is as lovely as I remembered it. Picture, if you will, Pennsylvania, except better! Ok all jokes aside, it is essentially the same terrain as Pennsylvania, but with WAY fewer rocks. Which makes it super easy going.
It only took us about 15 minutes to climb back up onto the ridge line. At the top, we were greeted by the usual flatness that we’ve been having recently. But again, no rocks. Oh what a wonderful feeling. We CRUISED through the morning. We hit Sunfish Pond around 10:30, which was really nice, but also kind of a tease. The day was already hot (and getting hotter), but unfortunately Sunfish Pond is a protected area, so we couldn’t go swimming. Truly quite tragic. But it was pretty anyway.

After another hour or so on the ridge line, we began our first slow decent of the day. Was it easy? Yes it was! Did I still slip and fall on my butt on the way down? Yes I did! Pobodies Nerfect. But after this decent we ran into a road crossing, where we hopped a little ways off trail to check out the AMC Mohican Outdoor center. It’s a really cool little resort type place. We got food and hung out for like an hour or so. Getting back on trail was difficult, as the day was getting brutally hot, and the indoors was so nice and cool. But we had to, so we did.
The rest of the day continued in much the same fashion as the morning, minus the excitement of the lake. We climbed back up to the ridge line, and followed it once again. We passed a really cool fire tower, that I almost accidentally trespassed on (for legal reasons that’s a joke). We did have a little bit of rock scrambling, which threw a bit of a wrench in the plans, but other than that everything went wonderfully. It was in fact brutally hot, and we had to stop for water a bunch, but we made it through.

We ended up at a very small campsite just past the trail for Buttermilk Falls. Unfortunately the trail is currently closed, we we couldn’t go down to the falls. But other than that, the evening was pretty great. I finally broke my no cathole streak, which was a little sad, but 1300 miles seems like a pretty good run to me. And now it’s time for an early sleep! I’m tired.
Today was probably the single hardest day to get back on trail so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always a struggle coming off zeros. But this time I was HOME. And it was just so so comforting. I really do miss being home. And I was thinking about it the whole time today. Especially when it got hot and I was struggling. ESPECIALLY towards the end of the day when my foot started hurting really really badly (which I’m trying very hard to not get super freaked out about). But I guess that’s part of the challenge that has been set out for me. And I’m seeing my mom again tomorrow, so that’ll probably make it a little easier. Or, at least, I hope it does.
Quote of the day: “If I were an enzyme I’d be denaturing right now”
Today I’m grateful for bagels, leukotape, and electrolyte powder.
Day 95:
I was in an awful mood today. Truly truly horrendous. Like, for sure the worst I’ve felt on trail, the worst I remember feeling maybe ever? To start off with, I slept horribly. It was hot, and I had a blister on my foot, and a pounding headache that wouldn’t go away. Really really not great. I probably managed like 2 restful hours? If that. I still managed to get going around 7:30.
I was hoping that my mood would get better when I started walking. WRONG. My foot hurt, both from the blister and from some other random pain that has started up when I go a solid distance. I still had a headache, no matter how much water I chugged. It was foul, and so was I. I cried a couple times, which simply did not help. And it was slow going, which just made me feel even shittier! So all in all, pretty horrendous morning.
The afternoon didn’t start much better. I stopped for lunch, and couldn’t think of anything I wanted to eat less than another peanut butter tortilla. But I needed food, so what choice did I have? It tasted gross. And even once I got going again, I still felt horrible.
The only saving grace for the day was that I was meeting my mom in the afternoon for some trail magic. Lindsey was there too when I got there, so that was nice. And so just got to sit in the shade and drink cold drinks and hang out for like a couple hours. It felt much better than literally any other part of the day. My mom tried to convince me to hike with Lindsey til the end of the day but at that point I just wanted to be alone.
I finished out the day with a quick 4 miles to a shelter. From there, all the standard stuff. I hung out with people at the shelter, so at least I managed that. I’m feeling a little better, so that’s good. I’m hoping this was just bad sleep and that’s all.
Yeah, not my best day. Glad to have that one behind me. Im not even really sure what I was in a shitty mood about. Literally everything I think? I also think that being fresh off a visit from home didn’t help. Not that I would have ever considered not stopping at home. But I think being in comfort for a bit made the discomfort harder to bear. Hopefully it’s one good night sleep away from being gone.
Quote of the day: “Nothing says city street like a phallic obelisk”
Today I am thankful for trail magic, and any breeze at all
Day 96:
Much better day today, starting with much better sleep. In fact, this is the best sleep I’ve had on trail in a long time. I slept all the way til 7:30! Crazy crazy stuff. I hit the trail around 8, and I was feeling pretty good. I only had 17 miles, so there was no rush. And boy was I sure gonna take my time.
The first hour flew easily. The ground was flat, the trees were green, and it was not so hot that I wanted to shrivel up and die. Not yet anyway. After about an hour I hit the High Point Visitors Center. Now this is an iconic spot for me, for a couple reasons. Firstly, my family used to come up to high point a bunch to hike and ski. Second it was the place where my older brother got “arrested” (voluntarily sat in the back of a cop car while getting a ride). So yeah, nice memories. I’ve done every section of the AT in New Jersey, and I remember it all pretty well, but this section really feels like my home turf.
About 10 minutes after the visitors center I hit the well known (if you’re from new jersey) observation deck. It’s a little wooden platform where you can see basically the entirety of High Point, including the obelisk that marks the actual highest point in New Jersey (all of 1800 feet). I decided not to take the half mile detour to the obelisk, it was real hot and I thought that the tower would be closed anyways, so It didn’t seem worth it. I just pressed on.

Through the early afternoon I walked through a forest that honestly, still looked like it was in the early phases of spring, not summer. The trees are green, but there wasn’t much going on in the undergrowth. It was kinda weird after so many weeks of ferns to just have wide open space like that. But not unpleasant. Around 2:30, I hit a road crossing with a town easily accessible, so I decided it was time for lunch, and walked over.
What I didn’t realize was that the town is actually in New York. I only found out once I crossed the border and started violently throwing up from disgust. Kidding. (sort of). Anyway, it may have been in New York, but the Deli was good enough to get the job done, and the cold drinks were well worth the detour. I also ate a pint of ice cream, of course. Lindsey and I hung out there for probably an hour or so before she decided to try and beat the heat and get to the shelter. I waited a little while, but not too long. I finally left there around 4:30.
The last 5 miles were a mix of really boring and really cool. It started off cool, a solid mile and a half walk along an old train track. It was flat and open, so I zoomed through it. The next mile was particularly boring. It was just straight road walking. It wasn’t awful, per say, but it sure wasn’t exciting. But the last like 3 miles more than made up for it. The trail detoured through a nature center, which was in the migratory path of many pollinators. It was open fields of rivers and bogs, although it was mostly dry. But there were still plenty of birds and butterflies and other animals moving around. There were also TONS of benches! Good good stuff.

The shelter, again pretty standard stuff. There’s not a ton of super exciting stuff going on in the evenings. But in a way that’s kinda nice, the routine of it all. It helps settle down in the evening. But yeah, nothing super exciting to tell.
It was a much better day today. I actually felt pretty darn good. Apart from the fact that it was insanely hot, which is for sure a difficulty. But yeah, glad to put yesterday behind me.
I’ve found an interesting new problem. I really do not want to eat a decent amount of my food. Some of it is worse than others. Breakfast is easy, dinner a little harder. But lunch is the worst. I physically cannot bring myself to eat another peanut butter tortilla. The idea makes me gag every time. I can barely even THINK about it. I was dreading lunch today until I found out I could get to a deli. I don’t really know what to do about it. Maybe switch up my lunch? But i don’t know what to switch it to.
Quote of the day: “I’ll just catch you when you’re sleeping”
Today I am grateful for cold drinks, Italian sandwiches, and benches
Day 97:
Happy naked hiking day! Yes this is a real thing. No I did not celebrate. I hiked without a shirt in the morning, if that counts. But that’s just because it was STUPID hot today. Like even in the morning, it was insanely hot. I made the fatal error of not leaving til 8. Most people were already gone by the time I woke up, which I wondered at. Then I realized how hot it was gonna be, and I understood.
I didn’t let the heat slow me down at all (that’s a lie it totally did)! The plan was 23 miles, and 23 miles I was gonna do (I totally wasn’t). The early morning was east enough. In the woods, under the shade, the heat really wasn’t that bad. I was sweaty, for sure, but nothing horrendous. It was about 4 miles in that I ran into the real issue.
There a 3 mile stretch in the northern section of New Jersey that’s infamous for being a really cool boardwalk through marshlands. And indeed, it was very cool! What it WASNT was very shady. And like I said, it was already HOT. I was getting cooked. But it was flat, and even, so I could at least move through it pretty easily. When I got to the next road crossing, I decided to make a pit stop at a farm stand for some cold drinks and ice cream.

There I found Lindsey waiting. Not the craziest thing in the world, right? Except Lindsey had started hiking 3 hours before me. But it was simply too damn hot to keep going. So, we came to a decision. We were gonna sit around at the farm stand for a few hours, and cut our day down to 11 miles. And that’s what we did! I got there at 10:30, and we didn’t leave until almost 3.
Unfortunately, what came next was not gonna be easy. An infamous rock scramble called “Stairway to Heaven” waited for us. It’s probably the most vertical section in all of New Jersey. But don’t worry, we got a break first! As we tried to start, we walked into (not literally) a BEAR napping in the trail. So uhhhh, that was cool? We waited for them to move for about 10 minutes, before finally making some noise to clear the way. And then we got started.

Honestly, the climb wasn’t too bad. It only took us probably 10 minutes, which in that heat is something to be proud of for sure. And the rest of the afternoon was east after that. Fortunately, a thunderstorm rolled in in the evening and cooled it down a good amount. I’m happy that I may actually get a comfortable (not sweaty) night of sleep!
So yeah, not an easy day. I’m not exactly thrilled to cut the miles so short. But I guess that’s what we’ve gotta do 🤷♂️. Hopefully the heat wave break soon.
Quote of the day: “Mmmmm yeah, gimme ALL that cancer!”
Today I’m grateful for farm stands, polypong, and the pigs path.
Day 98:
Last night Lindsey and I tossed around the idea of going to a hostel for a shower and laundry. LIndsey said “nah, let’s just keep going”. At least, last night she did. This morning I woke up to a text “Rethinking the whole hostel idea.” So yeah, gonna be another short one today.
The morning was a little cooler thanks to the rain, but god was it buggy. So many damn mosquitoes, I was getting eaten alive. And it didn’t stay cool long either, so then I was hot AND getting eaten alive. AND the day was mostly rock scrambles. So yeah, not the easiest hiking, but again only 10 miles so not awful.
By 10:30 I had crossed out of New Jersey into New York. Booooooo. But the terrain was still the same. Honestly, the rock scrambles were pretty fun. the only problem was that most of the rock sections had zero tree cover, so I was just frying in the sun. And again, SO MANY BUGS. It was awful.

By 12:45, I reached the rod crossing where the hostel was. There was a hot dog stand there, so of course I had to go get one. It’s New York after all. And it was pretty damn good. Lindsey met me there, and we got picked up to go to the hostel. I’ll admit, the shower was amazing. I felt really really good afterwords. And the bunk room has AC, which is a life saver. But yeah. the rest of the evening was normal hostel activities! Hopefully meeting my mom to do some hiking tomorrow, maybe beating the heat? Who knows.

Like I said yesterday, I’m not in love with the shorter miles, but at least there was a hostel at the end of it today. Who knows, maybe the heat breaks soon and we can get back on pace. I sure hope so. But for now it’s nice to relax in cool AC.
Quote of the day: “What IS the bit tho??”
Today I’m grateful for AC, New York dogs, and CVS
Day 99:
Ok Eitan, breakfast it at 6:45! Gotta be up by then to get food! What time did I actually wake up? 7:15. Great start. Fortunately the person running the hostel was kind enough to make me breakfast anyway, so I didn’t go hungry. We got out by 8, not early enough to beat all of the heat, but still getting out of the worst of it.

At around 9:30 we met my mom, who once again came to visit and help us slack pack! We ate some watermelon, chugged some cold drinks, and dropped our packs. With lighter packs, even the heat didn’t scare us! Well, that’s a lie. But it seemed a lot less daunting when there isn’t 30 pounds on your back. And it made the rock obstacle course much easier to climb through. What made it hard was that my left foot started hurting pretty bad, so I had to stop a fair few times to try and make it feel better. But try as I might, it kept getting worse.
I’m gonna be incredibly honest, I was super zoned out for most of the middle of the day. My foot was really hurting, and the only way I could really get through it was to zone out. So that’s what I did. At least, that was what I did until we got to Harriman State Park. I love that park, so of course I’m gonna pay attention for that.
Of course, it started with a road walk. All good things around here do! But we quickly got back into the woods, and started climbing. I’ve hiked this part of Harriman, oh I don’t know, a bajillion times? This is my home turf. I could let my feet be completely on auto pilot, and just look around. About an hour after we entered the park, we got to my favorite stretch of the park; The Lemon Squeezer. Lemon Squeezer is a short, steep, right rock scramble right smack in the middle of Harriman. And it was so much fun. Normally, I’ve done it going south, so this was kinda new for me, which was pretty cool.

The last couple hours were, to be honest, kinda shitty. I was super super in my head. I was in a bad mental state. I don’t know whether it was the heat, or my foot, or what. But I just felt really awful. So imagine how happy I was to finally see mom again, waiting with more watermelon and cold drink (hint, it was very). We ate, drank, resupplied, etcetera etcetera. After that, my mom was happy enough to drive us down to Lake Tiorati. Lake Tiorati is another childhood favorite of mine, so it also went a long way to making me feel better. Plus my mom brought sandwiches from the best deli back home, so all in all, the day ended much better than it middled.
We sat by the lake for a while, and ate, and dipped our feet, and hung out for a while. But after an hour or so, it was time to get moving. We hopped back on trail, and got going. But after an hour, the sky got dark and ominous. And all of a sudden, it started POURING. Like absolutely dumping buckets on us. Which was, yknow, not lovely. But at least it cooled us down. And it only lasted a little while. By the time we got to the shelter, we were only damp instead of soaked. So that was nice. And we got there pretty late, so we pretty much just set up tents, watched a nice sunset, and went to bed.

“Is 1400 miles enough?” That’s the thought that was running through my head for a big chunk of the day. It’s a scary thought. It’s a thought that could drive me off trail. But it was there anyway. I think I’m just feeling a little… burnt out? Which is probably scarier than basically any other feeling i’ve had on trail. Like everything else, discomfort, sadness, all of it, I’ve known how to work through. But how on earth can I work through burnout? Especially on something like this? I really don’t know. Maybe it was just a bad day. God I hope so.
Quote of the day: “You did all those squats just so you could fall on your ass and feel nothing”
Today I’m grateful for Millburn Deli, Dor L’Dor, and lake breezes.
Day 100:
Contrary to what I thought would happen, it did not rain over night. Which would’ve been nice to know, so I could’ve set up my clothesline outside instead of in the shelter. As it was, everything ended up damp instead of soaked, so that was better at least? At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself as I set off.
The morning was physically easy, but mentally confusing. The area I was hiking through had been routed, rerouted, and rerouted again, so the blazes were all over the place and I had no idea where I was really going. At least it was flat and open. For a while, until the trail turned steeply uphill. That’s when the challenge really came in. Some times it felt like I was simply not on trail. And maybe I wasn’t!

Towards the end of the detours I ran into some other hikers, very clearly headed south. Except, they said they were headed north! And me, not having known where I was for the past like 45 minutes, decided to follow these guys who clearly knew where they were going. Come to find out, they had been road walking, and I followed them down a side trail that cut about a mile off of the trail. Whoops! Guess I’ll have to put an asterisk next to my through hike. Only 2196.4 miles.
The trail finally cleared itself up in the late morning. Or, maybe I just walked back into familiar territory. I was, after all, climbing Bear Mountain. It’s a climb I’ve made a ton, although fortunately not with a 30 pound pack, until now. But even more fortunate, the climb headed north bring you up the east side of the mountain, so it felt more like a light stroll than a real climb. At the top, I went up the i derivation tower, of course, and hung out for a while eating a snack and looking over the skyline of New York City. It’s a pretty cool place up there.

The decent was steep, but pretty short. Again, I’m glad that was the side we had to go down, not up. At the bottom, I sat by a lake front and ate some lunch. It was incredibly windy, and my tortillas really tried to blow away, but I managed to stop them. It was still difficult to eat, but chicken packets were at least a little easier than peanut butter. Hopefully it stays that way.
Right after the lake I walked through the trail side zoo! I was really excited for the zoo, cause why the hell does the trail walk through a zoo? I have no idea, but it does! And so did I! It was pretty cool, a nice mix between museum and live zoo. But it was small, so I was through it decently quick. Immediately after, I crossed the hudson river, which brought a very pretty view along with it.

Near the end of the day, I ran into lindsey stopped outside a little convenience store/deli on the side of the trail. This was the plan, as 19 miles really ain’t that long anymore, so we had plenty of time to kill. And kill time we did, we probably say there for like an hour and a half? It was lovely. Then we packed out some sandwiches and got rolling. Our campsite for the night is a baseball field next to a church, so I get to sleep under the watchful eye of a large wooden cross. Every Jewish grandmothers dream for their grandkid.

The day was a little better today, but still not 100%. I’m glad that there was a bunch to do, cause it distracted me from my own thoughts for a little while. But I was definitely getting in my own head again towards the end of the day. I still don’t really know what to do about it. I keep walking, but it becomes difficult after a while. Fortunately today there was a deli to break it up. I don’t know what I’ll do when there isn’t.
Quote of the day: “Oh so you won’t tolerate anti Italian prejudice, but antisemitism is fine???”
Today I’m grateful for bear mountain, beavers, and lemon zest chicken.
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