Evaluate and Adapt

We took the long, steep, sideways blue blaze to the West Mountain Shelter in order to see the New York City skyline lit up at night. There was a hazy but nice view of the skyline in daylight, but once it was dark, it was not discernible (bummer). I was warm and cozy in my sleeping bag inside the tent when I hear Jim say, "Are you awake?" in that tone that jolted me to full attention. A tougher man I've yet to meet. He was up all night in the severe pain of passing kidney stones. At daylight we hiked to the nearest road...no cell signal...kept hiking until we had a signal, then got an Uber to take us back to our car. We decided to take a few days off trail for Jim to be sure he felt better before we got back on the trail--yep, you read right, he still wanted to continue the hike! Since we had a few days to recuperate, we decided to drive to the Jersey Shore and stay in Atlantic City at the Hard Rock Hotel Casino and enjoy the luxury of clean cotton linens, soft fluffy pillows, hot showers, and T.V.! The room was wonderful and had a great view.

We got back on the trail skipping ahead about 100 miles in order to meet up with our tramily (hiker lingo for your trail family), Papercut and Sonic the Hedgehog to celebrate Papercut's 35th birthday.

By jumping into Connecticut we thought we would be getting ahead of some rain as an added benefit...which unfortunately, did not pan our for us. It rained. It got cold. We got wet and cold. We stopped at the nearest shelter to get out of the rain, get out of our wet clothes, and into our dry sleeping bags. On the way Jim saw 2 more bears--always an exciting occurrence. One advantage of skipping ahead was running into a few through-hikers we met before (I'm sure they were wondering how in the world we caught up with them!).

Finally got one on camera!

As always, we enjoyed some beautiful scenery along the trail. Before crossing the border into Massachusetts, we hiked through the extraordinary Sage's Ravine along a beautiful falling river with clear pools and everywhere green, green, green.

Massachusetts has some beautiful trail along the Mount Race Ledges with some outstanding views along the ridge.

The last day hiking before meeting up with our friends, was a painfully decisive 16.4 mile day for me. We got an early start as it was expected to be hot and humid day. Our pace was pretty fast as we hiked through some of Massachusetts' marshes--we were trying to outpace the swarms of Massachusetts Mosquitoes! Then the miles and miles of steep up and down climbing started. My back was hurting...my knees were hurting...my feet were throbbing...it was soooo hot... I got a blister on my big toe...and I got sick (four cat holes within a couple thousand yards). The decision was easy enough. After seven states and around 500 miles I'm no longer a through-hiker; I'm a section-hiker (though I have no intention of ever completing the entire trail). Here are some views from my last week as a through-hiker: