We got back on the trail at noon and it was steep and rocky again so we only made 7 miles by 5:00. It didn’t feel like we were going very slow and our breaks weren’t very long, I guess the terrain was just bad. I wasn’t expecting my daily mileages to get lower again until Vermont but here we are in New York. My knee has been killing me on the downhills again too. I thought it had gotten better but really there just haven’t been any real hills in the past month.
There were multiple trail magic coolers today. Five roads in a row had jugs of water out. Most of the water sources are ponds lately, which are not nearly as tasty as springs, so it seems like locals know that and help us out. One cooler had lots of goodies in it too, including fresh bagels and boxes of Cracker Jacks.
We took a break at a lake in Harriman State Park for swimming and dinner and then got back on the trail to hike until dark. We went through a fun scramble area with the Lemon Squeezer, a very tight passage, and an actual climb where I had to take my pack off and throw it up ahead of me to be able to get up the rocks.
We ended up hiking into the dark a little bit before finding a campsite but we made 11.1 miles for the day.
Leave a Reply