Days 70-82: Hamburg, PA to Pawling, NY
Hello from 2/3 of the way down the Appalachian Trail! Since my last post I have finished PA, and hiked through NJ and almost all of NY, which brings my total number of states visited up to 9.
Little Apple, Big World
This section of trail has had some enjoyably large waypoints. First, the turnoff to the Pinnacles in PA had the largest rock cairn I’ve ever seen. Second, at the road leading to Pawling stands the oldest oak tree on the AT—over 300 years old!
Border Crossings!
New states are coming fast and furious now. I know that it’s entirely psychological, because miles are miles, but it feels like I’m making more progress now that I have a state line to cross every couple of days.
A Trail Birthday
On May 25th I turned 23, and I had one of my best birthdays ever on the trail! On May 23rd I was set to hike 26 miles, which included crossing the NJ/NY border. I tell you what, New York is a monster: the second we crossed the state line the trail became rocky and steep. Usually I hike a solid 3 miles/hour, but that first day in NY I was inching along. By 3pm I had hiked 22 miles, and was struggling to motivate myself to do the last 4 when I came upon something glorious: a white van, the smell of burgers and fries, and an unmistakable North Carolina twang—Fresh Ground was here! When he saw me coming he said, “Apple! Come around here!” I followed him around to the front of the van, where he had set up a surprise birthday party for me, complete with cake, Oreo cupcakes, watermelon, veggie burgers, and a beautiful sign handmade by two hikers who I hadn’t seen in several hundred miles, Puff and Shine.
On my actual birthday, I woke up to Fresh Ground‘s banana pancakes and was gifted a mango vitamin water (my favorite kind), which Blackbeard bought me and carried for me 20 miles to our final shelter. Most amazingly, my trail family put on what would be best described as an evening of talent. Each one of them wrote me a poem, they wrote me a play featuring different scenes of my life that they had me star in, and they sang me happy birthday as they presented me a peanut butter banana Clif bar for a cake.
This was one of the best birthdays I had ever had—I experienced so much thoughtfulness and kindness from my trail family and friends. I’ve always been one for experiences over material goods, and this birthday epitomized that.
We love you, Brick
Here in Pawling, Brick decided to get off trail. Hearing that news and losing one of my trail family members was really sad for me: we had been hiking together for 1400 miles, but it sounds like it was definitely the right decision for him. So Brick if you read this, I loved hiking with you and I’ll be thinking of you eating large amounts of food all the way to Katahdin.
Miscellaneous highlights
Above some nameless lake, where we stopped for a 40 minute break during a fit of exhaustion.
With a fun turtle friend in Pawling!
With our new best friend and trail mascot, Stan, at the secret shelter in New York. If anyone tries to argue that his official given name is Jake, they are wrong.
Boys being boys on the pinnacle.
Up next
CT, MA, and a visit to Boston!