Through the Gateway

Day 101:

Well, Jesus didn’t strike me down in my sleep, so that’s always a good start to the day. Shockingly, I wasn’t the last person out of camp! Then I saw an empty 30 pack of bud lights and it became slightly less shocking. So yeah, I tried to be a little extra quiet on the way out. I have a feeling those folks were gonna have a tough wake up anyway.

This morning FLEW by. I don’t know what it was particularly. The hiking was cruisy, gentle ups and downs with only the occasional rock scramble thrown in there. No big climbs or decents, and only a tiny bit of road walking. Before I knew what was happening, it was 1 o’clock and I had gone 14 miles. But that meant that I made it to the big side quest of the day!

I know Minnesota is TECHNICALLY the land of 1000 lakes, but I really think that should be New York. I swear we’ve passed a lake every day. And we finally found one we could swim in! But yeah, I got there in time for a late lunch. STILL hating my lunches. I have to change something up next time we’re in a grocery store. Not exactly sure what, but I’ll figure it out when I get there.

beachside chillin

Hanging out by the lake was lovely. The day was hot, so I went and took a dip. Lindsey took off shortly after she dried, but I hung around a bit to still dry off. I may or may not have fallen asleep for 45 minutes accidentally. Whoops. But we only had like 8 miles left, no biggie. I could cruise it as quickly as I did in the morning.

Or at least, that was my plan. What I didn’t account for was that there would be trail magic at the next shelter. Someone who had just finished the trail a couple weeks ago was like “man, I miss all these really smelly gross people” and decided to come back out and provide for us. It was quite lovely of her, and very much appreciated. It was a nice feeling of community that I feel like I’ve missed at certain points out here. But I couldn’t let them keep me too long. The sun was setting, and I had a campsite to get to.

The last 3 or so miles were basically straight uphill. Now, everyone talks about how the elevation is way less in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, which is certainly true. But what they don’t talk about is no one out here us ever heard of a switch back. You want to get up a mountain? You’re going STRAIGHT UP. Which is kinda brutal at the end of the day. But I got some nice sunset views! I got to camp just in time to set up, cook, and go to sleep. We’re 2 miles from a deli for breakfast, so I’ll be dreaming of that all night.

I’ve started living for the side quests out here. The hiking is, well, not the most interesting. I wouldn’t say it’s BORING. It still very very pretty. But it’s just… so similar? There’s only so much deciduous forest one can take. But thankfully, New York has provided plenty of side quests to keep us occupied. It’s kind of a cool transition to be honest. And cool to be able to do these side quests and still pretty easily hit 20+ miles in a day. On the other hand though, it is hard not to feel out of place surrounded by so many “normal” things and people. It is definitely a mental adjustment.

Quote of the day: “You’re making me spell out loud?”

Today I am grateful for Sparks, my right quad, and adhesive tape.

Day 102:

Wakey wakey eggs and bacey. Well, kind of. Another plus if new york? There’s delis all over the place. And considering there was one just 2 miles up the road from where we camped? Of course I’m going for a bacon egg and cheese. Hiking before eating food always feels a tiny bit weird. I’m not exactly super hungry, but it kinda just feels like something’s missing. But anyway, I rolled out, got my sandwich, and got underway.

Here’s the problem with today; I have a box pickup, 16 miles away. Why is that a problem you ask? Well, I have to be there by 3. It’s currently 9:30. 5.5 hours? 16 miles? That’s a fast hike. Much faster than I’m used to going. I shot Lindsey a text to ask if she could potentially pick it up for me, but as I didn’t get an immediate response (duh), I had to start assuming she wouldn’t be able to (which was a totally irrational thought in hindsight). But I was speeding in the morning.

Fortunately, the terrain wasn’t that difficult. At least not to start. Like I said yesterday, New York is the real land of lakes. And I passed another one today. Unfortunately I couldn’t stop to swim, which a bunch of people did, but I had a hope and a dream. In retrospect, I for sure should’ve stopped and had fun. But it’s ok 🤷‍♂️. You live and you learn.

The early afternoon was when my quest started to feel futile. The terrain went up and down and up and down. Here’s the thing about New York. There’s not a huge amount of elevation, but no one here knows what a damn switchback is. Again, I’m pretty sure I’ve complained about this before, but it felt more prominent today than usual. But it happens.

By the time I was like 3 miles from the shelter, I realized that my quest was futile. I only had about 45 minutes to make it, so I had no shot. All my hope was on Lindsey now. But I had another issue. I was out of water. And it was HOT. How did this happen? Farout (the app i’m using for guidance) lied to me. It said there was good water flow at the next shelter. But there wasn’t only bad flow, there was NO flow. So I was hitting these last 3 miles dry. And in the 90 degree heat, that was gonna be tough.

In the forest, it wouldn’t have been that bad. There was enough shade to provide a cool terrain. But eventually the trail hit cow pastures. And there are no good trees there. And so the sun came beating down. And I was baking. Fortunately, after the fields, I went back into the forest. Aaaaaaand IMMEDIATELY back into like a mile of marshy boardwalk, which was cool, but had no shade. So I was cooking again. But i made it without passing out! So that’s a win.

Marshy Boardwalk (note the ZERO SHADE)

I met Lindsey at a deli (duh) half a mile off trail. And now we had a decision to make. We can camp at the deli, which is fun. Or we can hike another 6 miles to the next shelter. But it was hot. And then some of our friends showed up. So we ended up staying at the deli. Which means more breakfast and lunch tomorrow!! Woohoo!!

I’m too tired for coherent self reflection today. Sorry about it. But I’m just feeling exhausted right now for some reason. More to come tomorrow!

Quote of the day: “You’re just out there without protection” “What you don’t hike with a condom?”

Today I’m grateful for delis, corepower, and thunderstorms.

Day 103:

Is there a better way to wake up than with a bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel? Me thinks not. Of course, it’s better if it’s a new jersey bagel, but new york will have to do for now. Perks of sleeping at a deli i guess. But yeah, i had breakfast. lazed around, packed up. Then looked at my phone to realize it was only 7:30! And we were only going 18 miles (or so I thought), so I had forever. And I hung around there until 9.

The first part of the hike wasn’t physically difficult, but the trail was so poorly maintained that I was getting slapped, poked, scratched and drenched by just about everything running across it. It wasn’t pleasant. But eventually I broke out of that and into nice east cruising territory again. And that’s basically how it was for the whole rest of new york! By 10:30 I had crossed into Connecticut! Another day, another state down.

Bye New York!

Connecticut was easy. At least to start. It was a FLAT (and I mean flat) cruise down a pine forest. Eventually the trail ran next to a river, where I stopped to eat lunch. Now this is where the trouble for the day started. Me and Lindsey had a chat, and decided to push our 18 mile day to a 26 mile day! A big day in any circumstance. What I didn’t consider at that moment was that I had left camp at 9, and doing 26 miles likely meant that I wouldn’t get there until after dark. I would eventually realize that, but all too late.

I autopiloted most of the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps a little too much, because I took my first nasty fall of the trail. I got my foot caught on a rock and just went flying forward. Fortunately I managed to roll, so apart from a few scrapes and a light bonk on the nose, I was ok. I did have to sit for a little bit to compose myself though. By the time I got to the first shelter, the sun was setting. Did that stop me from pushing on? Nahhhhhh.

By the time it was 6 PM, I had 8 miles left to go, and I was HUNGRY. So, for the first time on trail, I sat by the side of the trail and cooked. It was kinda fun, but I didn’t stay long. I had one big up and over to get through before I was done. The up was fine. I smashed it. The down? Not so much. Now Lindsey had texted me to be careful, but I hadn’t realized the full extent of the challenge. It was a steeply downhill rock scramble. Not at all helped by the fact that I got there when the sun was setting. At that point, I decided to hop on the phone with a friend just in case something happened.

This was the downhill I was working with (with my headlamp AND flash on)

But I made it down all right! I shot Lindsey a text saying I was alive, and set off to do my first bit of night hiking on the trail. It was well dark by this point, and I had my headlamp out. It was a little bit spooky to be honest. Every sound sounded super loud, every shadow jumped out at me. Not the most fun I’ve had night hiking in my life. But fortunately the trail was following a gravel road, so it was perfectly flat and wide, making for an east enough time of it. I finally made it to camp, 10PM.

As you can imagine, I am again to tired for meaningful reflection. Maybe that’s something I need to work on, reflecting when I’m tired. Or sleeping more lol.

No quote of the day either, I don’t remember any.

Today I’m grateful for headlamps, karate, and cell reception.

Day 104:

I slept all the way til 7:30 today. Safe to say I was wiped. To my shock, when I climbed out of my tent, Lindsey was still there! That hasn’t happened in like a month. But she was also pretty tired, so we chilled for a while. She still got out before me, but not by much. It was another decision day. We could either hit 15 or 23. But we were gonna make that call once we got to 15.

I don’t know who said Connecticut was east, but they were LYING. Does it have a lot of elevation? No it does not. But what elevation it does have it makes you climb all the way straight up, and then all the way straight down. And repeat. It was like the rollercoaster in Virginia. Except at least the rollercoaster had switchbacks, which people in New England apparently STILL DONT KNOW ABOUT.

This is apparently the easy stuff that’s in Connecticut

Anyway, I was going slow, or at least I thought I was. It took me all of the morning and a little bit of the afternoon just to make it 10 miles to the first shelter. To my surprise, I found Lindsey sitting there with some other folks she had befriended along the way. So I sat, and we had a nice chat and hung out for a while. Me and Lindsey debated back and forth about how far we wanted to go. To be honest, 23 wasn’t happening. But 15 just felt so SHORT, neither of us wanted to commit to it. Then, I remembered the solution.

An old family friend, a work colleague of my dads (who was also my teacher in high school. Had offered us a place to stay once we got up into connecticut. And would

hopefully be able to pick us up when we did a more reasonable, but still decent, distance. I sent her a text and sure enough, we worked it all out! We only had to go 19 miles on the day. So, we set off.

The afternoon was much the same as the morning. Pointless ups and down, which I forgot to mention never had a view at the top of them. The only extra fun thing was that we eventually got over to a lookout and saw a racetrack. We actually heard it for about 5 miles before (and after) we got there, which was funny. We kept being like “what IS that??” But we eventually figured it out. And that was really our only view of the afternoon. Eventually we climbed down and started a flat 3 miles to the end of our day.

We got picked up around 6:45, and headed back about half an hour to where we were staying for the night. After a couple quick showers ( for everyone’s sake), we had a delicious dinner, and went up to bed. It was really kind of these people to let us stay with them. And what a wonderful stay it was.

Quote of the day: “I thought they would be going more than 20 MPH”

Today I am grateful for vroom vroom, knorr

rice packs, and high school biology.

Day 105:

I slept in this morning. Like, all the way til 9:30 in. I only got woken up by my phone buzzing from a text from Lindsey saying “I’m throwing laundry in, now or never.” So yeah, we were in no major hurry to get back to the trail. But we did eventually head back after a quick grocery shop. We hopped back on around 1:15, and were away for the day.

We decided we were gonna do a pretty slow day today, only going about 12 miles up. It LOOKED like we had a couple steep climbs in front of us, but fortunately we were just traumatized from yesterday. While these climbs did take us higher, they were much more gradual, and we honestly cruised over them much faster than I thought we would. I’m gonna keep it kinda brief today, cause there wasn’t much super exciting, but we got to the shelter around 5:30.

We hit this cool milestone on the day!

It was lightly raining on us all day, so we quickly set up our tents, and then sat in the shelter to cook our food and try to dry off (it didn’t work). But it was kinda nice to be back on trail, and not have to worry about doing crazy climbs or insane miles. A nice, chill day. How long will that last? Oh zero more days. Back to 23 tomorrow!

Lindsey and I had a chat this morning about how we were feeling, both physically and mentally. I think we’re both getting a little worn out in both aspects. We’re in a really hard part of the trial right now. Not because the hiking is so difficult, it’s not THAT bad, but because we’re not in a super interesting area, and yet we’re close enough to the end that we just kinda want to get there. It was a really nice conversation to have, cause I think we’re both on the same page about how we’re feeling. I also think we have some nice ways to push through it, until we get back to the prettier areas of the hike. Not that this isn’t pretty, but it’s not the same.

Quote of the day: “That’s not a cat hole, it’s a lion hole.”

Today I’m grateful for thai curry, doritos, and tape.

Day 106:

Everything was damp when I woke up this morning. That’s right! We woke up in a cloud! For some reason damp and cool makes it extremely hard to get out of bed, so I had a bit of a slow morning (that will come back to bite me.) But I was out of campe by 8 still. Today is probably our biggest elevation day for a while, so I wanted to get going.

There was no warmup either, it was immediately straight up Bear Mountain. Honestly, the up wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, although unfortunately any view there may have been was obstructed by the clouds. The down climb was the hard part. It was steep, and rocky, and damp. I was slippin and slidin, although fortunately not falling. But it took me probably 45 minutes to do just over a mile of downhill.

This was the “view” from the top of the climb

On the other side of it I crossed the border and headed into Massachusetts! Another state down. It getting kinda crazy at this point, we only have uhhhh 4 left? INSANE. Anyway, how did Massachusetts greet me? Well with another uphill of course! This one though was steep on both ends, so there were no breaks. On the bright side, near the summit there was about a half mile ridge walk, which was very very pretty. Like prettier than anything we’ve had in like a month. It was great.

Hello Massachusetts!

I sat for lunch just on the other side of that mountain, after only 8 miles. The morning was slow going. As I was packing up, there was a SMASH of thunder. Ruh roh raggy. I hiked, because what the heck else am I gonna do? About 2 minutes later it started DUMPING on my head. To be honest, I didn’t even put on my rain coat, although I did throw in my pack cover. I still had a long way to go, and I knew I’d dry off before I got to camp (l o l).

The rain did in fact stop after about 30 minutes. By that time, I had climbed down off the mountains and was crossing a series of flat pastures between ridges. It was really nice, mostly pine forests down by a river. I did get stuck at a railroad crossing, because of course I did. But other than that it was uneventful. But the day couldn’t end on such an easy note. I had yet another climb to do.

Honestly, the last climb wasn’t awful. It was broken up into a fair few sections, so there was plenty of leeway when it came to getting up the mountain. But, about 30 minutes before I got to camp, it started POURING again. This time I tried to get my rain jacket on, but by the time I had taken my pack off I was already soaked to the bone, so I decided it wasn’t worth it and just pushed on. It felt like a long time, but eventually I made it to the shelter in one piece, if a little (a lot) wet.

I’m tired. Not even like physically tired or anything like that. Although I do definitely feel the physical tired. But more than anything I’m just…. sleepy. Like all the time. I’m managing to make it work, so far, but I don’t know how sustainable it is to be this tired always. Maybe I need to go to bed earlier. Or maybe I need to find a way to get more restful sleep. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

Quote of the day: “No it’s no worries, just….. explode.”

Today I’m grateful for clothes lines, Minute Made, and pepperoni.

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