Appalachian Trail Journals: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York
These journals were originally published on my Instagram between June 26 and July 10, 2021.
Day 42 | 18 miles | 1067-1085
It turns out that where I had slept last night at the Mason-Dixon Line was much less backcountry and more just a wooded area in a suburban neighbourhood. I hadn’t really noticed when I set up because it was dark. So I woke up to dog walkers and locals on their morning walks passing me as I slept. All very friendly.
I was thankful that I didn’t feel any kind of soreness or niggles from yesterday’s big effort, but it was clear that my energy was way down. To go as light as possible for the 4 State Challenge yesterday, I hadn’t packed much in the way of dinner yesterday or calories for today, and I was feeling the effects.
It looked like a big wind storm had passed through the area recently and knocked down trees all over the trail. But I was lucky and thankful that the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club crews had been through just yesterday to clear the way. I even saw a crew making some finishing touches with their chainsaws and was able to thank them personally.
I had no intention of getting off trail for lunch, but my hunger got the better of me and I walked a couple miles to a great dive bar called the South Mountain Hotel to refuel, and I felt so much better. On the way, I walked through the beautiful yet kind of creepy and mysterious campus of the South Mountain Restoration Center. It was a sprawling property with huge old buildings and I had no idea what it was while I walked through. I did some research and learned that it’s now a long-term mental health care facility, but has gone through many uses and iterations over the last century.
Since I was already a little off the trail, I decided to road walk all the way to my destination for the evening, which ended up being a pretty bad decision. Turns out that hours of walking on pavement with cars speeding past is even more tiring than hiking on single track.
I stopped for the night at Thru it All Ministries, a church with a hostel in the back run by the very friendly and helpful Reverend Bob and Sister Tina. They even had a community pantry that hikers are welcome to take from by donation.
Day 43 | 36 miles | 1085-1121
I woke up early after one of the best sleeps I’ve had in a long time at Thru it All Ministries and was happy to hit the road around sunrise. I walked easily through the picnic areas of Caledonia State Park until coming upon the highlight of my morning, the Quarry Gap Shelters.
The shelters were gorgeously built and maintained, and came complete with a picket fence, potted flowers, a porch swing, and covered eating areas. Seeing all the hard work that volunteers put into the various shelters on the Appalachian Trail, especially since they’re free to sleep in for anyone, has been one of the coolest parts of this trip.
In the early afternoon, I visited the Appalachian Trail Museum in Pine Grove Furnace State Park to learn some things I didn’t know about the history of the trail, and the lives of folks that led its development like Benton MacKaye and Myron Avery. Walking through the beach area of the park was a bit of a culture shock, with so many people and families crowding around. But it was nice to see so many people having a good time on a sunny day.
In the early evening, I popped into the Green Mountain General Store for a big, greasy dinner and a quick resupply. Then I was back into the forest for my last couple hours of hiking to my camp on Center Point Knob, a mountain named for being around the halfway point of the AT. The highlight of the evening was hiking through a maze of boulders that covered the top of an unnamed summit.
I’ve heard that the state of Pennsylvania as a whole is generally disliked by former thruhikers, but I’m going to go on record here and say that southern Pennsylvania is pretty great. We’ll just have to see what the northern part of the state has in store.
Day 44 | 28 miles | 1121-1149
The day’s walking started through picturesque farmers’ fields surrounding the town of Boiling Springs as the morning sun’s rays were shining through gaps in the clouds and lighting up the crops around me. On the Appalachian Trail, it’s always a treat to be able to look out over the landscape around me after being in the dense forest for a couple days straight.
Boiling Springs itself was very charming, with an historic town centre right along a small lake. I loved the look of all the old buildings and gardens and thought that it would have been a great place to stay the night, but since it was only 8am when I passed through, a settled on drinking a coffee at the local cafe.
After leaving the town I enjoyed some super easy walked along a narrow corridor of greenery through more farms and the rural areas of Cumberland Valley. The morning’s walking was pretty civilized, with the hum of an interstate in the background pretty well the whole time, and at least one farmhouse always visible on the horizon.
I eventually made it out of the fields and up onto a forested ridge where I got my first taste of the pointy rocks that cover the trail and give this section the nickname Rocksylvannia. I didn’t like it one bit. With the combination of heat, bugs, rocks, and threatening thunder in the distance, I had a low emotional moment in the later afternoon. I was over it, especially after the storm rolled in and I started getting rained on.
During the steep, rocky descent into the town of Duncannon, I decided that if a room in town was available, I would take it for some refuge from the heat and the bugs. As fate would have it, I ended up staying at the historic Doyle Hotel, where hikers can get a basic room in a 100 year-old building for $25.
I find myself feeling this weird guilt around stopping in the middle of the day to get a room during this thruhike, like I should be able to just endure the conditions and walk until sunset to just sleep outdoors night after night. But I guess at some point I need to realize that walking 28 miles in 100 degrees F is enough of an accomplishment for the day to take an opportunity to rest up.
Day 45 | 30 miles | 1149-1179
“Bro, I’m straight up not having a good time.” was the phrase that echoed through my head for most of the morning leaving Duncannon. The first couple miles were sidewalks and shoulders along noisy roads, including the Clark’s Ferry Bridge where I amazingly walked through more spider webs across the walking path than anywhere I’ve ever experienced. The spider webs continued for hours as I gained a rocky ridge above the valley. I moved slow because of the terrain and just mental fatigue. I wasn’t enjoying myself.
I realized after a while that one of things that was bringing my spirits down was the noise of train whistles and highway traffic that I could hear all morning. I guess when you’re dealing with the challenges of the backcountry but haven’t even escaped the chaotic stimuli of civilization, it feels like getting the worst of both worlds. On top of that, I was failing to make even my full capacity of 2 litres of water last between sources in these conditions.
On any long enough outing, there’s bound to be some low moments, and I was going through one of those for the first half of today. The thing is, “It never always gets worse.” The trail was finally clear of spider webs and I made my way down to Clark’s Valley Road where there was a big creek where I could cool off and rehydrate. The bonus was that a trail angel named Geoff showed up to offer cold Cokes, which reliably make everything better. I sat and chatted with Geoff and some other thruhikers in the shade and recharged both physically and emotionally.
The afternoon up on the ridge of Stony Mountain was much more enjoyable. The temperatures cooled off a bit and the trail tread was much more pleasant. It was neat to see that the Rhododendrons were just starting to bloom around here, and unlike the deep pink flowers I had seen through North Carolina and Tennessee, the blooms here are white with pale pink.
I made camp for the evening alongside Rausch Creek among the ruins of the former Rausch Gap Village, where apparently hundreds coal miners and railway workers lived until 1910. It’s now not much more than I pile of rocks.
Day 46 | 29 miles | 1179-1208
As I was breaking camp this morning, I was thrilled to see another hiker who had woken up early walk past me northbound. That meant I wouldn’t start my day with hours of spider webs for the first time in what feels like forever!
It was another hot and humid day but I was thankful to be walking through shaded forest and dense groves of Rhododendrons that kept most of the sunshine off of the trail. The trail itself was pretty easy, especially coming down from the William Penn Shelter on what seemed like an old road. I was even fortunate enough to meet a trail angel for the second day in a row. His name was Steve and he made sure I was all stocked up on cold Coke and Gatorade before I continued north.
The rest of the afternoon was more rocky trail that I typically hate, but I found myself tolerating it much better than usual. Maybe it was the shade and comfortable temperatures, or maybe I had just found a good headspace.
As I got into the last couple hours of my day, I could hear a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, and I could feel it moving in with the wind. I didn’t want to get dumped on before getting to camp, so I started picking up the pace despite the rocks that were slowing me down. After I got to a water source and the dark clouds above me blocked out the sun, signalling the imminent start of the storm, I made the last minute decision to stop for camp earlier than usual so that I could be in my tent when the rain started.
I knew I was just delaying the inevitable, since I would definitely get wet in the forecasted rain tomorrow, but I thought about how nice it would be to not crawl into my tent with wet gear. I also figured it would be a good chance to catch up on some needed sleep.
Day 47 | 31 miles | 1208-1239
I woke up in my tent this morning and was pleased to find that it wasn’t raining yet, and that I’d be able to break camp without getting wet. But it did eventually start dumping not long after I started moving, and I’d be soaked through for most of the day.
One thing I thought about today was about how if I had been moving at the same average pace as Joe “Stringbean” McConaughy was in 2017 when he set the record for the fastest thruhike of the Appalachian Trail, I’d have reached the northern terminus this morning. It was inspiring for me to know that even though I walk until sunset most days and most people I meet seem pretty impressed with how fast I’m going, my pace isn’t even in the same ballpark as what some other amazing humans have done on this trail.
But even more than the pace, I thought about something that Stringbean’s said to me and in interviews a few times. That is, that the most important mindset for overcoming the challenges we encounter out here isn’t grit or toughness, but gratitude. I took his advice and thought about how if I could walk on a rocky, overgrown, viewless tail in the middle of a storm and still feel grateful for the opportunity to be out here, the support of my loved ones, and the trail itself, everything seemed much more manageable.
I passed through the tiny town of Port Clinton in the afternoon and stopped into a candy store called the Port Clinton Peanut Shop where I loaded up on a silly amount of fudge, chocolate-covered pretzels, and roasted nuts.
A serious amount of rain fell from the sky over the course of the day, turning the trail into one giant puddle and making things very muddy. I don’t know whether it was my thinking about being grateful or my giant bag of candy, but I found myself not minding the weather too much.
The rain eventually did stop for a while, the birds started chirping again, and I really enjoyed walking through the dense forest, complete with that post-rain smell. I finished my day up high on a rocky ridge in the Hawk Mountain area and crawled into my tent just as it started to rain again.
Day 48 | 21 miles | 1239-1260
I climbed out of my tent this morning into an eerie darkness. Even though the sun has risen, the fog around the trail was thick enough to keep most of the light out. I started my day walking through that fog on a rocky section of “trail” that was really just miles of boulder fields marked with painted white blazes.
In the late morning, the fog cleared and the sun came out, but the rocks persisted and made the day’s hiking very slow. But one of the things that kept me stoked throughout the day was the opportunity to snack on fresh blueberries that grew on both sides of the trail.
By the time I crossed the Lehigh River and started making my way into the town of Palmerton, the skies were clear and the sun was hot enough that it was hard for me to believe the day had had such a dreary start. That thought was related to something I’ve felt a lot of days on this thruhike. Each day out here has been so full of new experiences and such a wide range of places that they can each feel like a lifetime. I’ll sometimes have a memory that feels like a distant one only to realize that it was from yesterday.
I had to go into town to pick up a pair of shoes I had mailed, but had plans to get back on trail afterwards. That all changed after I saw dark storm clouds coming right into the area. I got a bunk at the hostel at Bert’s Steakhouse and was indoors literally minutes before it started pouring. I was happy to have the opportunity to rest up before finishing up the last few allegedly very challenging miles of Pennsylvania.
Day 49 | 19 miles | 1260-1279
I slept in way past my alarm in my bunk at Bert’s Hostel in Palmerton, letting me know that I probably needed the extra rest. But I slipped out quickly and quietly while the other hikers slept and hit the trail holding a giant hot coffee from the local gas station.
The day started with a steep climb up Blue Mountain, where the trail stayed up high on the ridge. Unlike most of the rocky and treed ridges I had walked on for most mountains of the last few hundred miles, this one was grassy with open views to the north down to Palmerton. I got to check out the town but also the absolutely massive zinc processing plant that dominated most of the valley.
As I was descending to Blue Mountain Drive, my trajectory for the day was decided by coming across trail magic hosted by former AT hikers named Tunes and Duct Tape Dan. They had fired up the grill and had a cooler full of cold beer, and it turns out that I was in the mood to just sit around and chat for a couple hours. I got vortexed into that spot for most of the day and was happy about it.
After a while it felt like it was time to say goodbye and set off into the rainy weather, protecting myself from the elements with my rain cape. What started out as kind of fun turned into a real slog after a few hours. The combination of consistent rain, trail that alternated between rocks and mud, and all the beer that I had consumed really sapped my energy. I managed to stay completely dry under my cape, but I moved at a slow plod throughout the afternoon and early evening.
The rain was on and off for the rest of the day, but I found a final burst of energy at the very end of the evening. As the sun was setting, the rays coming in through gaps in the trees lit up the fog and rain drops in gold to create a beautiful sight with which to end my day, along with the sounds of fireworks in the distance set off by people celebrating the eve of Independence Day.
Day 50 | 17 miles | 1279-1296
When I woke up this morning, I poked my head outside of my tent to feel how cold and dreary the conditions were, and ended up laying inside for a while longer, totally unexcited about heading out into the chilly fog. The unplanned delay turned out to be a blessing, because when I finally got moving it was the perfect timing to see the forest put on a beautiful show.
As I descended towards Wind Gap, the sun started shining bright enough to pierce through the clouds and light up the fog around the trail with beams of light that danced around the foliage above. It was one of those scenes in nature that only lasts for the few moments that all the conditions align just right.
The rest of the morning I found myself fighting physically and psychologically with the rocky trail, pretty ready for Rocksylvannia to end and be back on dirt. Things started feeling a lot better in the afternoon after I came across a cooler of cold Cokes at the crossing of PA Route 191, and then found a great sunny spot near the top of Kittatinny Mountain to enjoy the view and dry out all the moisture that had seeped into my gear the last couple days.
As I descended towards the town of Delaware Water Gap, I saw dozens of dayhikers out enjoying the trail to celebrate the 4th of July. I made my way past them and the blooming rhododendrons to get into town. The first thing I came across was a big yellow house with a bunch of thruhikers sitting on the porch. I learned that the house was being renovated into a B&B, but while it was under construction, the owner Marty lets hikers sleep in the unfinished rooms for $10. I decided to end my day early and take the opportunity to celebrate Independence Day with some fellow hikers.
My thruhike hasn’t been all the social overall up until this point, so I’ve been happy to take the opportunity this holiday weekend to enjoy the company of others in this weird community of misfits.
Day 51 | 31 miles | 1296-1327
I woke up early at Marty’s Old Yellow House in Delaware Water Gap and was pleased to start walking around sunrise. It was another foggy morning as I crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey on the sidewalk of a busy interstate toll bridge. The loud traffic noise stressed me out as it always does, but it wasn’t long before I made it into the quiet of the forest.
The second foggy morning in a row meant that I got to enjoy the beautiful sight of the rising sun shining through the tree canopy to burn off the mist again. I climbed up towards Raccoon Ridge, including skirting the edge of the tranquil Sunfish Pond where frogs and waterfowl made all kinds of wild noises I didn’t recognize.
At the peak of the ridge, views on both sides opened up and I found that although the sun had burned through the clouds up here to reveal clear skies, the mist still lingered in the valleys below me. I looked all around from the top of this cloud inversion and felt like I was in some kind of heaven.
The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent going up and down a handful of smaller mountains, many of them with decent views from the top. I had read that New Jersey was the most densely populated state, so I was surprised at what I saw every time I got a view towards the west: undeveloped forest all the way to the horizon.
In the evening, I stopped into Gyp’s Tavern not far from where the trail crosses NJ Route 206 for dinner and a beer. The tavern had a picturesque patio on the shore of Kittatinny Lake, the perfect place to relax and enjoy the end of the day before hiking up towards the ridge of Sunrise Mountain to camp.
Day 52 | 29 miles | 1327-1356
I had a pretty awful sleep last night. It was so hot and buggy that my bivy made for not ideal sleeping quarters: very sweaty and mosquitos buzzing around inches from my ears. The night may have been a sample of things to come as I head towards New England in the height of summer, so I’ll need to figure out how to deal with it.
So I let myself sleep in a bit and managed to have a surprisingly great start to my day. Not long before I got going, I was at the summit of Sunrise Mountain where I was amazed to find a giant stone pavilion. It was like the type of thing you book at a municipal park for your extended family picnic, except on the top of a mountain.
The structures didn’t stop with the pavilion. All morning I passed by old stone walls, signs of development from long ago. As I walked through the forest, I tried to imagine what kind of activities took place in this area before it was protected as a corridor for recreation.
As I walked into the afternoon through High Point State Park and then over sunny farmer’s fields and on boardwalks through marshes, the heat and humidity really caught me off guard and kicked my ass. The trail itself was gentle and pleasant, but the conditions made it tough.
The heat got to me enough that I decided to make an unplanned detour into the very charming village of Unionville where I could sit in the air conditioned Wits End Tavern to cool off over food and beer. After sitting around for a while, I found that it had more than cooled off; it was actually about to storm. But I was feeling good and walked off into it with my rain gear on. It ended up being fun to follow the AT along rural roads and around pastures, watching the lightning above and staying mostly dry.
The weather let up after not too long, and I enjoyed walking sleepily to my campsite as the setting sun lit up the clouds leftover from the storm in pink.
Day 53 | 17 miles | 1356-1373
I started the morning’s walking on the impressive 1.5-mile long Pochuk Boardwalk. The marshy wetland was so different than most of the terrain I’ve walked through so far, and it was great to hike over it as the rising sun burned off the mist from the tall grass.
Once I got out of the marsh, the rest of the day was through an incredibly fun and engaging mix of terrain. I did a bit of classic AT forest walking, but also went though muddy bogs and pastures, ran over rock slabs along mountain ridges, did some light scrambling and even iron ladders. So far, despite the heat and the bugs, New Jersey and New York have been a lot of fun!
In the late morning, I crossed the NJ/NY state line for the final time, and made good time descending towards the town of Greenwood Lake. I did a resupply and ended up really enjoying my time hanging out with locals at the Irish Whisper pub. But the most important part of my town stop today was a visit to the pharmacy to get the second dose of my Covid-19 vaccine. Getting fully vaccinated took a load off my mind, because not only would I be able to keep myself and others in the trail community safer, but my home country of Canada would let me back across the border without having to quarantine or stay in any weird hotels.
I couldn’t help but get a little emotional sitting in that CVS while I waited after my shot. We’ve all been through so much over the past more than a year in this pandemic. It was mostly an overwhelming amount of stress and fear and loss, and along with that a lot of introspection and evaluation of what really matters in our lives. It’ll likely end up being one of the most hectic times in our generation. And this is how I would close the book on that chapter in my life: with a 1-mile walk to a very ordinary corporate pharmacy where I would sit around and watch people buy bandaids and get their monthly prescriptions refilled. I guess it was a big moment.
Day 54 | 31 miles | 1373-1404
Once I got back on the AT after my night in the friendly village of Greenwood Lake, I noticed that the forest in New York was much more sparsely wooded than what I had gotten used to. More sunlight made it through the canopy, and I was able to see the topography around me a little better, and I thought it was beautiful.
I enjoyed going up and over a handful of rocky summits all morning and doing some very light scrambling. But it got more challenging through the afternoon when it started raining, making the rock wet. But I kept at it slow and steady until I crossed Interstate 87 into Harriman State Park where the trail got more walkable.
When the storm that had been teasing its approach all day with showers and the sound of thunder finally hit me in the late afternoon, I was truly amazed by the amount of water that fell from the sky. Within minutes, the trail had become just a body of water a few inches deep that was flowing harder than most of the streams at which I had filled my bottle the last few days.
At that rate, I knew it couldn’t last long, so I just trudged through. I ironically made it to a shelter just as the rain was stopping, and continued on for the evening, enjoying the peace that comes after a storm.
The thing I didn’t know is that apparently it can storm twice like that in a single evening. After a couple hours of calm weather, the skies opened up again just as I was hiking over Bear Mountain. I got soaked all over again, walking through what is apparently one of the busiest and most touristy places on the whole AT, except I had it all to myself. I loved the stone steps that had been cut to form the trail through the area.
At the end of it, I felt unexpectedly elated while I walked the trail on my own, all the dayhikers having stayed home and all the backpackers snuggled up in their tents. I guess the feeling of having comfortably walked through multiple storms and over mountaintops in just shorts and a shirt and my little pack on a night where everyone else stayed away made me feel stoked and confident, even if very wet.
I would find out later on, after checking the news, that what I was walking through this day was Tropical Storm Etna.
Day 55 | 30 miles | 1404-1434
It was another wet and wild day on trail in New York. I woke up to the sound of rain on my tent, reluctantly put on my wet clothes, packed up and went out into it. It was a trip to walk by the hundreds of picnic tables in Bear Mountain State Park all by myself, feeling like I was on the set of an apocalypse movie. I left the park by crossing the huge Hudson River on Bear Mountain Bridge where the exposure to the wind and rain was pretty brutal. This morning was one of the first times on this thruhike that I’ve been concerned about getting too cold. Ironically, the closest I came to feeling hypothermic this morning was when I popped into the Appalachian Market convenience store for a snack and they had the AC blasting. After a couple minutes of shopping in my wet clothes I was shivering and dashed back out into the relative comfort of the mountain rainstorm.
I survived through the morning and made it into the afternoon, which was sunny but somehow even harder psychologically. Without the adrenaline that had carried me through the morning storms, I felt drained. And with the end of the rain came the biting insects which I hated. But me hating them made me feel like an ingrate that could appreciate neither the rain nor the end of it. To top things off, after a few hours of sun when I had just managed to get dry, a massive dump of rain came for a few minutes, ensuring I would have wet feet for at least the rest of the day. It was hard to deal with.
I stopped at a nice lookout above Canopus Lake to wring out my socks and take a break in the late afternoon and it took me a really long time to get going again. I just sat there half enjoying the view and half just staring at my macerated feet.
But as they say “the trail provides”. As I was passing by the RPH Shelter at the end of my day, I was welcomed by a group of volunteers from the local trail club that cooked me dinner on the grill and offered me a cold beer. I sat around with them and chatted over the food for a while before hiking off to find a campsite on Hosner Mountain feeling pretty content about things.
Day 56 | 29 miles | 1434-1463
I started my day today in the same headspace as yesterday: I was tired and kind of over it. Fortunately, the AT had some relatively easy hiking over varied terrain in store, and I ended up getting some great weather to boot.
The morning was spent walking through systems of ravines and up and over smaller hills. It seems to me that the Appalachian “Mountains” in New York are the smallest of the range, no more than a few hundred feet high.
One of the most interesting parts of the day was hiking on the Swamp River Boardwalk through grass that was taller than me, sometimes growing so thick and close to the trail that I need to push through it. The swamp gave way to pastures and farm fields in the afternoon, and it was nice to finally be out in the open after days in the Green Tunnel.
In the late afternoon, I realized that unless I wanted to have nothing to eat for the next day and a half other than the bag of almonds in my pack, I needed to pick up the pace to get to the Bulls Bridge Country Store before they closed for the day. So I was fired up and found myself moving really well, feeling pretty excited to do so. That made me think about how it’s important to establish and focus on mini goals throughout the day and the greater thruhike to stay motivated and focused. It’s clear that the days that I’m kind of lethargically plodding along are the ones where I’m not getting stoked simply from the hundreds of endless miles ahead.
I crossed the state line into Connecticut and made it to the country store with minutes to spare, but ended up chatting with the owner for a while instead of rushing in and out. He was a such a friendly man and told me about how his family-run store had happily served hikers for 18 years, and he even gave me a free beer. We talked about hiking and New England and he really made me feel welcome and right at home. I never expected to have such a meaningful social interaction in a convenience store.
Read the next chapter of my Appalachian Trail journals from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont here.