July 12

Well we saw some bears...yes bearS. 2 strolled right up close to our camp last night about 5min. apart. The first bear was a male about 400 pounds. This bear thought nothing of our shouts and noises, he never missed a beat just walked right past us. The second bear was a female, weighing in about 250 she also had no time for us. Welcome to NY!

New York is actually a really pretty state, the terrain has changed again along with the water situation.  The Trail is just jetting up and down at steep grades but its kinda cool, its a little rocky...but its more like rock scrambles so its fun.
Water is few and far between,  fortunately some road crossings haVe gallons of water from trail Angels.

Tonight Sunshine and I are stealth camping in a beautiful no camping area...but in our defense ny has terrible back country rules. We hope to be up and out on trail early to avoid and early hikers, or maybe the rain will keep them away who knows.

Slowww. July 13 - 14

Summer is in full swing, which maybe nice for those of you who have air conditioning or are hitting the lake and the river. For us thru hikers it makes for short days and heat exhaustion.  Sunshine and I have cut our daily miles down to about 13. Between the rocky steep climbs, limited water and the heat, exhaustion rears its ugly head early in the day and causes us to stop short of our desired destination.  Yesterday we climbed bear mountain (hill) amongst a ton of tourists and had to be tortured by the smell of barbeque when we got down to the lake. The trail went through a zoo and over the Hudson River. In the zoo we hit the lowest elevation on the AT 124 ft. Lately my energy levels and motivation have been low maybe because the heat or just due to the fact I've been walking for 4.5 months...I don't know.  Sunshine and I have made a pact, basically we promised to get the other one to Katahdin no matter what. I'm glad she is my hiking partner, we make a good team.

Carpenter

Relaxed finally

Well we made it through Jersey and are in NY. Sunshine and I stayed at Antons on the lake, a quite and beautiful little B&B. Yesterday was a true Zero day, we did nothing and it was amazing.  Today sunshine and I are heading back on trail with a full resupply of food ugh heavy packs...Thanks you again momma for keeping the food coming,  also I want to thank Nanna and Papa Friend for the package can't wait to eat the smores :-).

Hopefully the dark ominous clouds rolling in will hold off for us but either way...we shall walk tall.

Carpenter

July 4-7

On the fourth I stayed at a free hostel. I got back on trail on the 5th. Sunshine and I are back to doing good miles...we will be at the highest point in NJ by the end of the day 841 miles to go after today. The temperature is blazing hot...low 90s its not really bothering me as much as other but still its hot. Blueberries are everywhere on the NJ ridge line, I can't help but stop and eat them. Last night sunshine and I stayed at a fire tower and watched the third day of continuous fire works.

Carpenter

Freedom from Pennsylvania rocks on Independence day

Oh thank God, we are out of Pennsylvania. The Next 100 miles is in NJ, where there are supposedly no rocks...just bugs and bears.

Currently I am in Delaware water Gap, after two days of mental torture...I know I keep talking about rocks, but that's all there was rocks rocks rocks, and an occasional blueberry patch or some other delicious berry to munch on. Sunshine and I are once again around a whole new group of hikers...all of which are also glad to be out of the rocks.

My knees at this point are killing me...I'm just thankful for new shoes so my feet don't hurt too. Today is resupply day, sunshine is resuppling in DWG and I have a package ten miles north of here. Speaking of miles....Less that 900 to go!

Rain is officially gone...until tomorrow, I'm just used to everything being wet now so whatever, let it rain!

Carpenter

July 2

Today...well today was mostly just "not that great". Sunshine and I got a late start, which really wasn't a big deal and some important gear business was taken care of, but its was raining of course. It rained off and on most of the day, which wouldn't have been bad except that we were crossing huge bolder fields that are extremely slippery when wet. Come 3 o'clock we were 1 mile from Polmerton PA. which either meant go 17 miles into the Waste land, up a huge bolder scramble and no available water, or go to thr FREE hostel in polmerton and call it a day. We decided to go into town and dry out our gear, which was all soaked get a good rest and hit the rock scramble hard in the morning.

Just a little side note. ..I still have not fallen since springer mtn GA. About 50 miles left of rocks so I hope I can stay vertical. Cant wait for NJ on the 4th for independence day!

Carpenter