Day 59

Day 59: 24 miles

You didn’t think I was going to make it through New Jersey without a single sopranos reference did you? I’ll cross the border into NY tomorrow morning. My time in New Jersey has been alright but I would’ve rather spent it hanging with the boyz like in the last picture.

My kryptonite is getting up and moving in the morning when it’s bone chilling cold. This morning it was 1 degree with the wind chill and I got up and out of camp an hour after I had hoped.

But the day was pretty good after that. With the really cold temperatures it made the snow firm and I wasn’t postholing very much today. This really helps my speed and level of joy.

Part of the trail today was in a marsh area and thankfully there was a nice boardwalk to walk across it on. This brought me back to a time when I was hiking in a group and we were crossing a very flat bridge with no obstacles whatsoever on it. I’m just walking and next thing I know, one of my group members in front of me is flailing off the side of the bridge. The person near me and myself immediately begin laughing. Then we realized she just fell off a bridge and ran to make sure she was okay. We found out she was fine and immediately started laughing again and reliving the situation 100 times. Thanks for the memory fran

Toward the end of the day I reached pinwheels vista which was a really popular day hike area and was a sheet of ice from all the travel on it. Some people I passed were trying to hike it without microspikes or any traction. I felt sorry for them. When I reached the top I could see the high point tower that i was at last night 20 miles away. Pretty neat

At the end of the day today I felt like I wanted to keep going but the next shelter was 13 miles away and that wasn’t happening.

I also forgot to mention that yesterday a local said that the lakes and ponds usually freeze for 2-3 weeks in January but then thaw out. It’s March and so far all that I’ve seen have been frozen.

Song of the day: big empty-Stone temple pilots