New Jersey has woods?

Finally out of Pa! The night after Delaware Water Gap we spent at our friend, Brian Fried's house. His parents were kind enough to provide us a bed to sleep in, let us take a hot shower and even tolerate our smell! What a difference from a tent! We were the guinea pigs for Brian's first batch of scrambled eggs ever in the morning and it seems he is a promising chef!

Since then we have been pushing it to get out of New Jersey and New York by the 18th. 74 miles in four days so far! Animal sightings: a whole family of turkeys, 3 salamanders, loads of squirrels, at least 10 frogs, an 8 pt deer 10 yds away and 10 ticks.

New Jersey is also surprisingly swampy. The picture below shows the mile long boardwalks through the swamps. The pond is Sunfish Pond, the first glacier created body of water we hit. The monument is High Point Monument, marking the highest point in New Jersey.

Rocks, rocks and more rocks

Since the last post, we have gotten off the trail for Margaret's grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary and returned where we left at the 501 shelter with our parents. During the three days that we hiked with our lovely parental units, we swam in a freezing cold reservoir, hiked 25 miles over rocky terrain, enjoyed a bottle of wine at an overlook of pennsylvania's farmland, and ate some chocolate covered bacon.

Following our parents departure on the fourth of July, we continued on from Port Clinton. The first night we stayed at the Windsor Furnace Shelter with padre a 74 year old priest who made our parent's complaints of aching joints seem unfounded. After a midnight thunderstorm, we woke up and slowly began hiking again. We did not make too much progress in the morning as we passed two of Pennsylvania's most beautiful views at Pulpit Rock and the Pinnacle. That evening we made it into the Allentown Hiking Club Shelter at sundown. We also found that while hiking in a smaller group, we see significantly more wildlife. Today alone we saw several hawks, a turkey and a couple deer.

The following day we woke up early and set off for Palmerton, PA. The hike there was by far the rockiest we have seen. We hiked a section called knifes edge which consists of a long sharp jut of rock with steep drops on either side. The day ended in exhaustion at the local jail house in the basement of the town hall. Fortunately, they open it up for hikers to stay in! We had a nice shower and ate a great local restaurant.

The following morning we woke up at 5:00 AM to begin one of the most unique hikes on the AT. It includes a 6 mile uncovered rock scramble over a bare mountain side. The land is now an EPA superfund site after an old zinc operation ruined the vegetation. We set off to tackle this section with our new friends spice man, rhino, passion flower, voltron, socks and bobby. During the day we saw a 6 foot long rattle snake! Fortunately, it quickly rattled across the trail and left us alone. After another exhausting day, we are safe in our tent avoiding the current thunderstorm. Tomorrow we will set off for a 20 mile hike into the Delaware Water Gap where we will cross into New Jersey and finish Pennsylvania and all of its rocks!

On The Road Again

After a week long break to heal my ankle, we are back on the road. Springs in Georgia are drying up so we hopped up to Harpers Ferry West Virginia to start this portion. We picked up David Houck,a friend from college, and Giles, my brother, in Richmond.

The first day we had a slow start- especially after an extensive REI trip for Giles. We ended up in Harper's Ferry at 10 o'clock, had a massive pizza dinner, and took off on the trail with the head lamps camping in the first spot we could find.

The next morning, Buzz (formerly known as Deet formerly known as Ricky) and I went back on the road to Harpers Ferry. At the town, the Shenandoah and the Potomac join . The bridge between the two was spectacular. The town is also really interesting for its history as John Brown's abolitionist seizure of the armory was located there. Today it is full of cobbled streets, historic b and bs and reinactors.

Since then we have been making good time, meeting a lot of fun people and having a good time. Today we crossed the Mason-Dixon line and tomorrow we head into Blue Mountain Summit for our first PO pickup from my Mom . We plan to get to Boiling Springs Pa by the end of the week.

Update on the last five days (for worried mothers)

Day two: We were caught on black mountain during a surprise thunderstorm. The higher we got the more worried we were until we finally busted out the inflatable sleeping pads and sat on them praying for an hour. Fortunately we did not float away on the creek previously known as the trail. Using our knowledge from middle school soccer we waited for thirty minutes after the last thunder and quickly limped off the trail. We setup camp in woody's gap and slept soundly.

Day three: Sprout (formerly known as Margaret) spent an hour and a half answering questions about valuations on a conference call while Deet (formerly known as Ricky) fought off boredom and improved his beat hang methods. We didn't make any progress because Margaret's ankle was tweaked from the run-in with the thunder gods.

Day three: we hit the trail again for an uneventful yet beautiful hike to jarrard's gap. We stayed at a campsite provided by the famous Cradle of forestry Interpretive Association with colorful hosts Brenda and Melvin.

Day four: We explored the camp grounds at the beautiful mountain lake.

Today we are hiking to neel's gap!

First Day

After a great day of hiking we reached the Great Hawk shelter about 10 miles from springer mountain. Not without a couple hitches though. We got lost twice but found the trail three times. The first was google map's fault. On the way to way to the trail head we took several detours, but made it to the trail head by one o'clock. The woods were beautiful; mountain laurels were in bloom, and we walked through stands of massive hemlocks.

We met a few interesting characters along the way too. Juice and Mooki
hiked all day with us carrying twice as much weight with an iPod and full boom box. On a side trip to a beautiful waterfall we met a shirtless, bearded, old man. He was particularly proud of his minimalist nature and pointed us in the direction of the waterfall. He was also kind enough to give us incorrect directions back to the trail. We spent the next hour eating cobwebs and bush wacking.

Tonight it is storming, but we made some ramen and are safe in the tent!