Week Fifteen – New York’s Rainy Season and a Pennsylvania Wedding

Hey everyone, Victory here! We had another amazing week on the Appalachian Trail, splitting our time between gritty hiking conditions and a few days of refinement so I could be a ‘groomsman’ in a wedding. Here’s what’s been going on!

Day 99, Monday June 26: The sound of a light rain pelting the tent woke me up around 6am, and the frogs were still singing away. I was able to fall back asleep until around 7am, and then I started packing my stuff up. We were able to break camp after the rain stopped although the sky (and forecast) told us the rain was far from over. We started the day’s hike with intermittent sun cutting through light, scattered showers, and the humidity was still stifling. A few miles in, we hit the Lemon Squeezer–a narrow section of trail passing between two rock walls. We had to take our packs off and shove them along in front of us, since they were too wide to go through sideways on our backs. Immediately after this we had to climb a ten-foot rock wall with difficult slanting footholds. I clambered up first, tossing my trekking poles up before hauling myself over the top. Meadow lifted her pack high above her head so I could just reach down to grab the handle on top, and I hoisted her pack up behind me so she could more safely climb up after it. We agreed that the rock climbing was fun, a different kind of challenge, but we were much more apprehensive about falling during this hike than we normally would have been on a day hike. Breaking an ankle or leg after falling twelve feet wouldn’t just be a funny story and a cool plaster cast for friends to sign, it would mean the end of our Thru-Hiking journey, which wasn’t a laughing matter.

We passed the rest of the morning hiking across grassy ridgetops and climbing rocky hills. By 11am the humidity had become unbearable, and made the air temperature feel sweltering even though it wasn’t even 80 degrees. Despite the periods of rain over the last few days, the previous drought had gone on for a long time and every stream valley we had crossed for two days was empty. We took a side trail down to the Lake Tiorati visitor area of Harriman State Park, and were able to fill our bottles of water. Since the lake had a swimming area and bath house, we decided to take showers there since the humidity was so disgusting. The very kind maintenance manager said the showers were normally closed when the beach was closed, which it was, but he would open the bath house if we locked it back up when we were done. The showers were freezing (FA-REEZING!), but they did wonders for morale. After we left the bath house we locked it as promised. Since it had started to downpour again we stayed under the covered porch area and cooked second breakfast. We watched an army of swallows flit in and out of the porch to bring insects to three nests with baby chicks inside. The parent birds flew straight at us when we walked around, protecting the nests with their lives. One swallow actually grazed my cheek with its wing to let me know that I was too close to its nest.

Eventually we headed back to the trail, and hiked on. We came across a shelter around 2pm and took a short sitting break, just as the second downpour of the day started. Out of the rain once again, we had another snack and chatted with Snacks and her husband whose name I forget. They were also taking shelter from the rain in the shelter, so we talked about their Thru-Hike that they had started last year and were finishing this year. As soon as the rain slowed, we headed back out into the forest; Snacks and her husband decided to end their hiking day early to stay in that shelter and attempt to dry out. After an hour or so of walking in the humidity, a third downpour started–and from this one, there was no escape. We were totally soaked within minutes, and it was difficult to see through the heavy rain and fog. The trail wasm not well-marked in this area, and I had to repeatedly top in my tracks to squint around in the pouring rain and dim afternoon light to investigate which direction we were actually supposed to go. The flashes of lightning and great booms of thunder occurred often and were close enough to be a little scary. We came upon a section of trail that crested an exposed ridgetop and waited for a few minutes until the thunder seemed farther away, and then we scurried along the ridge while trying to stay close to trees as much as possible. We hiked a total of thirteen miles for the day, ending at West Mountain Shelter with a view of the New York City skyline. When we arrived at the shelter we could not see the skyline through the storm clouds and the fog, but we knew it was there somewhere. The shelter still had plenty of room for us, and so we spread out our soaking pack covers and our wet clothes to “dry” in the cold air. We cooked dinner perched on the edge of the shelter floor, wind blowing the rain all the way in to spray us anyway. Eventually we had finished eating and brushing our teeth, and we waited for a break in the rain to hang our bear bags on the cables. Around 7:30pm a group of fifteen 18-year old boys rolled into the area, and were very disappointed to find that there were already four people in the shelter. Four of them quickly set up their stuff in the remaining space in the shelter while the rest of them grumbled and set up their tents. The boys seemed to enjoy making their dinners, and while we chatted with them we learned that they were participating in a summer hiking program. They were supposed to go backpacking in Guatemala, but their flights were cancelled and rescheduled for later on the week so they decided to do some rainy preparation hikes in New York while they waited. Thunderstorms came and went throughout the evening, and as dusk came we could see lightning flashing all over the Hudson River Valley. I saw cloud-to-cloud lightning that illuminated the thunderheads in explosions of yellow, and purple and blue bolts of lightning that struck the ground far in the distance. The thunder was loud enough to shake the shelter, our fortress now seeming like just a pile of useless wooden planks compared to the storms. During a brief break in the rain, the clouds parted to reveal the New York City skyline in an orange glow from the lights, and then the storms returned on and off throughout the night. I was able to fall asleep during the worst of the storms, only to be reawakened hours later by one of our young sheltermates eating pita chips (the crunchiest, loudest chip on Earth) in the middle of the night. Not only did the boys not hang their food, but they used their food to keep us up at night, adding injury to insult.

Day 100, Tuesday June 27: Happy 100 Days on the Trail to us!! We woke up to a cloudy morning once again, and I got moving around 6am. The boys had left remnants of their dinner scattered all over the ground, spaghetti noodles and chips lying in rainy puddles around the shelter. We chatted with them about their summer hiking program and plans for Guatemala, and about the Appalachian Trail, and one or two of the boys were really interested and expressed interest in at least section-hiking the whole thing. Others were not so enthusiastic. One of the boys looked like tenting in a thunderstorm had been the worst night of his entire life, and when he found out that we had been on the AT for 100 days, he was aghast. “You’ve been out here that long? WILLINGLY!?” By the time we started hiking around 7:30, it was already drizzling again. On the blue-blazed side trail back to the AT from the shelter, we came across a rattlesnake on the trail who softly warned us of its presence before falling silent. After getting over the initial surprise, we just moved on. It wasn’t until we were already past it that I realized I hadn’t even thought about taking a photo, answering the question of “How many rattlesnakes do you have to see before it seems normal enough to skip a photo?” Four. Four rattlesnakes. We reached the AT after a short ridge walk, much less scary without lightning and thunder, and officially started our day. We hiked along some more beautiful and foggy ridgetop for several hours, with small ascents and descents. The trail in New York has a lot more rocky bluffs with rounded boulders han in precious states, and forested rocky escarpments over stream valleys…it was starting to look more like New England! In the late morning we found ourselves heading into Bear Mountain State Park, and we stopped for a snack break at a porta-privy and some park trash cans where we could dump our trash from the past few days. We headed down several hundred stone stairs to the park’s lake, and traveled through the park past its pool. To our surprise there were actually a handful of people swimming in the pool, but to be fair we were probably only a little drier than the swimmers were! The rain picked up a little more as we entered the zoo and museum area of the park…yep, a zoo and museum. The zoo consisted of a few amphibian and snake exhibits, plus a large enclosure with two black bears. The black bears were brother Pal and sister Sadie, and Pal apparently has bear alopecia which makes his fur fall out. Because of this condition Pal is a much lighter brown color than Sadie; we joked that if I saw Pal out in the wild I would be much more likely to die of fear thinking that he was a grizzly bear, than assume that he was just a black bear with a genetic disorder that turned his fur brown. We walked into the amphibian and snake exhibit, and the geology exhibit. There were some huge Gordon mastodon fossils (or, more likely, replicas of fossils) that were found a mere 14 miles from the state park. I named the fossilized mastodon “Gordy” and we decided to have a snack with him since the covered one-room exhibit was fully protected from the rain.

We wound our way through the park in the steady rain, finally exiting and approaching the Bear Mountain Bridge to cross the Hudson River. Crossing the Hudson seemed like the perfect milestone to celebrate our 100th day on the trail, and we enjoyed the beautiful and drizzly view.

After the bridge, we hiked a other six or so miles to the Appalachian Market, a convenience once store with a full restaurant menu. We picked up our very expensive resupply for a few days, and each ordered a sandwich and some accoutrements like fried mozzarella sticks. The sun actually had the audacity to come out after turning its back on us for a few days, and so we hung our wet pack covers, rain coats, and socks over the picnic tables to dry a bit. While we ate outside, we chatted with a couple from New Zealand who were Thru-Hiking the AT after being pushed off the Pacific Crest Trail. They live just outside Rotorua, which Nick and I visited when we went to New Zealand in 2016; very small world! We also chatted with P.E., a gym teacher that we had met at the West Mountain Shelter the previous night.

After eating our celebratory sandwiches and fried foods, we walked another one mile to our campsite for the night: the ballfield of a Franciscan monastery. Apparently this monastery has been keeping their ballfield open to Thru-Hikers since the 1970s, and it did not disappoint. The area was open, flat, and grassy, and there was a spigot for fresh water and an actual coldwater shower for hikers to use. We set up our tent and unpacked, and I inspected my pruny-beyond-reason feet. I had some nasty blisters that had already burst from my wet socks, so I applied some ointment and bandaids to them and put my luxurious clean pair of socks on. While we set up camp and pitied our feet, a few other hikers rolled in that we hadn’t seen in a while, including Alyssa and Rachel, two of the three “Maine-iacs” nurses from Maine that we had met our first week on the trail! When they got halfway across the ballfield, they started yelling “Is that Heather?!?” and we had a joyful reunion. They told us that our friend Jules had to leave the trail with a hip injury, which was devastating news. We had wanted Jules to succeed on the AT so badly since he had such a sunny and jubilant personality! The third nurse Allie had to get off-trail for almost a month with an injury, but was back on now, hundreds of miles behind. We also got the scoop that Allie had started dating Cole, another Thru-Hiker we also met during week one (a trail romance!). It was great to see Alyssa and Rachel again after so long, and catch up on their trail experiences. Meadow was too full for dinner after our late lunch at the deli so I just snacked on a few protein bars and Chex Mix since the thought of firing up the stove just for myself seemed like a ton of work. I hung the bear rope off of a thirty-foot-high branch after two tries while talking to Nick on the phone, prompting accolades from the spectators about how high it was. “Did you see that? She was on the phone when she hung that, too!” When our food bags were hung, they dangled at least twenty feet off the ground, and at least ten feet from all other branches. Chris the Ridge Runner would have been so proud! Working smarter and not harder, Rachel and Alyssa simply clipped their food bags to the ballfield’s flagpole and hoisted them twenty feet in the air, too. The sky clouded over around 8pm, and we all retreated to our tents amidst the thunder to wait for the rain. Around 9:30pm it began as a slight drizzle, but once again escalated to an overnight thunderstorm.

Day 101, Wednesday June 27: I woke up around 5am and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I just packed up my sleeping kit and retrieved the bear bags early. The air was already extremely humid and the sky was full of mottled clouds…I knew it would rain again, it was just a matter of when. We had a leisurely start to the morning, leaving the camping area after most other people had ready left, and we took a fair amount of breaks in the morning. Meadow and I both were feeling physically tired, but more than that we were becoming weary of the oppressive humidity and the constant rain/threat of rain. A few hours after starting the days’ hike it seemed that we had not gone that far, when two middle-again men approached us hiking SOBO on the trail. They were both extremely friendly and asked us about our experiences on the AT, and whether we were sisters (a question we get a lot!). They were friends who were working to complete the AT in two or three years, and they prefer to do their day-hikes SOBO so they pass everyone on the AT. They typically travel with a cooler of drinks for hikers as well, and they let us know where it was. “Look for our cooler roughly 4.5 miles up the trail, and there’s a well spigot with fresh water, too. We didn’t dig that for you, but we’ll take credit for letting you know it’s there!” It seemed to take us a few days to hike that 4.5 miles, and by the time we got there I was ready for a blast of caffeine from the Mountain Dew that I had. We trudged on and on through the ridiculous humidity, which was surpassed in annoyance only by the constant onslaught of mosquitoes. And I use the term “constant” quite literally here, as there was at least one mosquito either buzzing in my ear or actively draining my blood at any given time throughout the day. At one point during the afternoon, we walked along a straight path near the base of a hill rising tall and steep to our left. All of a sudden a small rock started rolling and bouncing down the hill toward the trail maybe 10 feet in front of us, and I thought to myself ‘wow, it’s weird that the rock is so round and that it just happened to fall as we passed.’ The unidentified falling object came to a rest right next to the trail, and as we approached I realized that the rock was alive. “It’s a turtle!” The little spotted turtle must have slipped while ambling around the hillside high above the trail, and retracting its head and legs into its shell allowed it to bounce and roll down a forty-foot hill (apparently) unharmed. I’m not sure if turtles get dizzy, but it at least didn’t die.

We hiked up a small mountain just as the clouds began to darken, and we stopped so Meadow could put her pack over on. I had kept mine on all day since the rain was inevitable, but now it seemed truly imminent. The downpour that ensued only lasted about twenty minutes, but the cold, fat raindrops quickly soaked us through. After the brief but significant rain, it continued to drizzle lightly and the humidity was still unbearable–what a shock! We crested another ridgetop with a September 11th memorial painting of the US flag, and a view of the surrounding valleys.

We then had to complete a several-mile descent to our shelter for the night. The soaking rain had saturated my shoes and socks, and I could absolutely feel blisters forming. I should have stopped to address them, but we were “so close” to the shelter and after the difficult day I just wanted to be done hiking as soon as possible. The last few miles of the day were agonizing, my feet screaming in protest with every step. By the time we reached the shelter, the blisters at the base of my toes were extremely deep and had ripped open. I applied antibiotic ointment to them and covered them with bandaids as best I could, and then once again out on my luxuriously clean second pair of socks. As we set up our sleeping kits on the raised bunks, we chatted with Popeye, our only shelter-mate for the evening. She had started her Thru-Hike last year but had to quit due to bad shin splints and her mom also had a health crisis. Her dad had passed away in 2021 from cancer, and Popeye said that his diagnosis was one of the reasons she had committed to hiking the AT. We talked about our dads and the grieving process. By the time Meadow and I had cooked dinner, it was already 8:30pm and it was getting dark due to the ever-present cloudy sky. Physically and emotionally exhausted, we ate dinner at an actual picnic table under a covered roof, as the cold rain continued to fall–but not on us. We agreed that the day has been rough, but the fact that we had still covered 18.8 miles was something to be proud of, which made it a Good Day. Eating my instant noodles that weren’t quite fully hydrated and a sticky, questionably-flavored protein bar for dinner, we joked that it could absolutely still be worse. “For the record, I still still don’t want to quit!” The shelter had a trash can in it, which was allegedly emptied by a volunteer group. Although it seemed wrong, we threw our trash in the can and left our food bags right in the shelter with us, and we mercifully didn’t have any issues with bears. I climbed into my sleeping bag around 9pm, and had to pull the liner over my head because the mosquitoes were relentless, a few even biting me through the liner, drawing both blood and whispered profanities.

Day 102, Thursday June 28: I woke up after a decent night’s sleep, a few pounds lighter than usual from the mosquitoes siphoning off half my blood while I slept. We packed up our sleeping gear and ate breakfast, saving the “putting went shoes on” until the last minute. My blisters still hurt to walk on, and I inspected my ruinous socks that I had worn almost every single day of hiking, so almost 100 days…needless to say, the socks were abject disasters. Both socks had holes in the toes, at the back of the heels, and on the balls of my feet. After making it almost two thirds of the way through the trail, I decided it was time for them to retire. I thanked them for their services and then threw them in the trash can at the shelter. The smell of those should keep bears away until the trash is emptied.

I wore my plushy and clean second pair of socks to hike in that day. We hit the trail just before 8am, with a total goal of walking 5.1 miles. We were getting picked up for a few days off-Trail! The miles passed relatively quickly, and we saw two deer sprint through the woods. The sun has the nerve to peek out behind the white clouds. “It’s too late to apologize, New York!” I joked. We saw an enormous orange mushroom that looked like it was an edible variety, but I wasn’t confident enough to recommend it. We made it to our extraction point just after 10am, and I changed into my clean second pair of shorts and a t-shirt for the ride back to eastern Pennsylvania. Nick picked us up and drove us to Meadow’s sister’s apartment near Harrisburg, and we had an amazing dinner with some of their friends from college: traditional Vietnamese hot pot. Yum! We had a lovely visit and eventually Nick and I had to tear ourselves away to drive another hour to our Airbnb for the long weekend, close to where my friends Doug and Kelly would be getting married. After a whirlwind day, we unloaded the car and crashed immediately.

Days 103 – 105, Friday June 30 through Sunday July 2: Wedding weekend! Friday morning I woke up early to shower and use hair product for the first time in over 100 days so I would look presentable at the rehearsal dinner. I had packed my wedding clothes bag in March, and I had included five pairs of shoes I could potentially wear at the rehearsal and wedding, but to my horror none of them would fit on my feet anymore. A few weeks ago while on trail, I suspected my feet had gotten bigger and so I had ordered an extra pair of shoes for the wedding just in case. Luckily my broken, swollen feet would at least fit into them! Phew! Nick and I drove to Shady Maple, where we had a lovely time with my mom and a few other folks who it was absolutely wonderful to see. (Hi mom, Aunt Pat, Uncle Tom, Jackie, and Frank!!!). I had never been to Shady Maple before, and for those of you who are not familiar it’s the biggest buffet in the USA. I am glad that my first experience eating at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord was when I was a Thru-Hiker, because I wouldn’t have been able to eat as much as I did otherwise. The best part was the doughnut bar! We went to a nearby goods store and I found some very cushioned Oofos sandals to wear to the rehearsal dinner so I wouldn’t have to wear my camp shoes. (I know I’m a fashion icon, but rubber clogs would have been pushing it a little!). After a lovely visit into the afternoon, Nick and I headed to the wedding rehearsal which was also lovely. It was wonderful to see and catch up with old friends! Driving around eastern PA, I was surprised at how much more hazy the air was than in New York where we had left he day before. The air pollution from the Canadian wildfires had ramped up again, increasing the air quality hazard to the red/purple stage.

Saturday we woke up and headed to the wedding venue early–showtime! My friend Amy was the Best Maid in the wedding, which was awesome. We helped set up and had our makeup done, which was a new experience for me; having my eyebrows combed (WTF?) and fifteen different products put on my face at one time was a far cry from life on the Appalachian Trail. Amy’s parents live in the area, and her mom generously offered to do an emergency hem on my dress on the wedding day, which was an absolute life-saver (it was perfect–thank you so much Barb!). We did the normal pre-wedding activities, and when it finally came time for the ceremony I cried almost as much as the groom did. The reception was an absolute blast. Nick and I learned how to swing dance when we were in college, and whenever we attend weddings we always try to find at least one song to swing dance to as long as the beat works out. This time it was Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” After a long and very fun day, we ended with a sparkler send-off to the married couple and helped clean up the reception hall before heading back to our Airbnb. Congratulations Doug and Kelly–I am so happy for you!!!

The next day I slept in until 10am for the first time in what felt like years. Nick and I grabbed breakfast and a half dozen enormous doughnuts at a nearby cafe, and ran around to get some vegetables for dinner and a few odds and ends for the trail (blister Band-Aids, baby!). We spent the rest of the day eating doughnuts and repacking all of our stuff, and I tried to stay off my feet as much as possible. It was a perfect relaxation day before we would be heading back to he trail the next day.

Our plans for the next week of hiking are exciting ones, for several reasons. First, we’ll have some backpacking company as Nick and a few friends are planning to hike with us for a few days, which will be a great time. (I hope you guys like grits…). Second, an AT friend of Meadow and I named Rod had to take a few weeks off-trail as well, and there’s a good chance our paths will cross again this week which would give us the opportunity to catch up. Third, if all goes according to plan we will be finishing New York and crossing over into Connecticut within the next few days around AT mile 1462. Even though the tough conditions of last week (bugs, rain, and sweltering humidity) will probably still persist into next, there always seems to be something to look forward to. Onward!