Day 36: Bearing the Burden on the PUDs

Summary

May 31st

NY RT 17A to Stealth Camp

NOBO mile # 1381.7

Tolmann’s daily mileage 9.7

Tolmann’s total mileage 348.3

Got a later start than I wanted this morning; it’s hard to get moving when you’re not waking up on the trail. There are too many things one has no control over… It was after 9am by the time I was on trail. 
But in the meantime, I had a great breakfast and conversation with Tofu, who is a young German guy, a vegetarian (thus the trail name) who is an aerospace engineer off the trail. And I was able to thank Sandy for her support above and beyond the norm. Again, I highly recommend the Warwick Conference Center (which is listed in AWOL’s guide as the Living Word Church). Accommodations are not free, as is stated, but are $50 a night. But dinner and breakfast were included, and free laundry and trail shuttle. 

Anyway, once I was back on trail, I got a weather alert for light rain (which reminded me I needed to turn on airplane mode), and soon I started to feel drops. I stopped and threw on the pack cover and my raincoat. Besides the rain, the morning was pretty uneventful. I soon reached the Wildcat Shelter (where my friends had spent the night), and kept on moving. The rain didn’t last all that long, and when I reached Fitzgerald Falls, the sun was turning the spray to diamonds. These kind of features are rare on this part of the trail, so I took a little extra time to soak it all in.  Most of the day there were the infamous NY PUDs (Pointless Up and Downs), and, even with the burden of the pack, I handled it with a certain level of equanimity. I found a wet rock to sit down on to eat my lunch (bagel and peanut butter and strawberry jam). I was grateful, though, that the sun had come out, so I didn’t mind the wet bum all that much. 

Eventually, the climbing up and over and down the broken cliffs and ledges begins to wear. My feet hurt, and scrambling up and down with my pack becomes slow motion torture.

So I was pretty low when I found Boss and Goddess in a informal campsite after 3pm. Boss’s pack frame broke and had been poking her in the side. The broken frame lay on the ground, looking like a metal and plastic pretzel, and she and Goddess were both on there phones trying to determine their options. I stuck with them until they decided to hike on, and since I couldn’t help them and the road was a short distance away, started off on my own. Immediately I came to one of the worst cliff scrambles of the day, forcing me to throw my poles up ahead of me so I could use my hands. 

At this point of the afternoon, I don’t recover well from that kind of exertion, so I was getting more and more wobbly. 

I made it down to the road where I found the second water cache of the day (thanks, Tuxedo Trail Angels!). Across the road I quickly came to Little Dam Lake; there were what looked like informal campsites there, but I struggled with the thought of stopping for the day, although it was beautiful there. Then there was another up which led to the top of a hill, where I found a really nice little campsite with an emergency first aid box. I went around and around on whether to stop there for the night, before finally deciding to. 

So I’m in my hammock in a little hollow, but basically on top of this little forested hilltop. 

And I learned while eating supper that there are scattered severe thunderstorms moving through the area tonight. So far the weather radar shows them moving north of me. But I’m feeling a little exposed, even though I’ve set my tarp’s leading edge as low as I can. We’ll see, won’t we? 

Tomorrow’s plan is 11.7 miles to William Brien Shelter; hope to catch up to T&H there…