Mid Fall Long Weekend New Jersey AT Hike
November 30, 2021 § 3 Comments
I was preparing a Purple Carrot dinner when the first group text came in.
NJ AT Hike #6
December 6, 2015 § Leave a comment
Frosted weeds
“Who ever decided on extending this hike to 17A, Fuck You!” Andy was a little grumpy, and he had turned a patch of exposed pink granite gneiss into a Tempurpedic mattress for a short rest, but he was still moving, and in the end he was going to make it.
NJ AT Hike #5
November 8, 2015 § 1 Comment
Morning on the Wallkill Wildlife Refuge
It’s funny thing about trail systems. It doesn’t really matter what size the system is. We could be talking about your favorite local trail, for example The Grand Tour in Hartshorne Park here in Monmouth county. At some point in time, the trail requires a re-route. There are reasons for these changes; Some times it is to allow a used section of the trail to recover and regenerate. Where the area is large, say for example Harriman State Park in NY, trails can be moved fairly often so that no one section gets too abused. In the case of the AT there are many sections where private land is involved, and the land owner changes their mind, or the land changes hands and the new owners refuse to allow the right-of-way to continue. When this happens enough, new maps get issued.
NJ AT Sectional Hike #3 – Culver’s Gap to High Point State Park
June 30, 2015 § Leave a comment
June 28, 2015
It’s been a month since our last hike (4 weeks technically), my oral surgery is still in recovery mode, but I am under no restrictions other than I am still on a soft food diet. Our plans of camping Saturday night, so that we could observe the Sunrise from Sunrise Mountain, were thoroughly washed away by a near tropical storm that came through late Saturday.
Getting Started Culver’s Gap
I awoke in a daze. I had fallen asleep in the chair I had last been sitting in watching another episode of The IT Crowd. (Episodes on Netflix!) I hadn’t done anything to prepare for my hike and I needed to get some bed rest before awaking for real at 4:30. I did take some time to put a lunch together and then retired to my bedroom. I wanted to get to bed, so I figured I would just put everything together in the morning and I crawled into bed.
NJ AT Sectional Hike #2 – Mohican Outdoor Center to Culver’s Gap
June 30, 2015 § 1 Comment
June 1, 2015
As is the custom with these sectional day hikes, I don’t exactly get myself fully together until the last moments the night prior, and then I don’t sleep well to boot. Last Saturday night was no different. On the plus side, at least I had managed to get everything together and ready to go, so there was nothing to do in the morning except drag myself out of the sack and get to the car. Negatives? Sleeping, or lack of it. Thoughts of what I was forgetting, or sleeping through the alarm raced through my mind all the while, side thoughts of “I am not asleep yet” percolate occasionally to the head of my consciousness issues queue.
Stupid issues were keeping me awake as well. It’s warmer weather now, so I wasn’t planning on long hiking pants, however, I don’t really own a pair of short hiking pants. I have shorts, but they are all cotton and even though rain was also forecast, no one wants to sweat-wet cotton shorts and wear them all day. So all I had were some pocket-less gym-style shorts which being pocket-less meant that it wouldn’t be easy to access my iPhone for picture taking, and now that I had spent some cash on a Pic Stick, a phone case with a tripod adapter, and a remote shutter release, I had been planning some hiking selfies! Jeopardy! Then I remembered that I had purchased a waterproof pouch, for my backpacking trip in Utah last year which could attach to my shoulder strap, except I didn’t have the slightest idea where it was, and I certainly wasn’t going to find it at 4:30 in the AM. THAT, and whether I should wear compression calf covers during the hike because I was reasonably certain of sore lower legs in the days after the hike if I failed to do something about it. So, little sleep was achieved.
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