Day 113-A Stairway to Heaven

July 9-13.7 miles-Unionville to campsite-AT mile 1361.8

The day started out quite easy, trail wise (good thing too, because I weighed my pack, with 3 1/2 days of food, and 1 3/4 liters of water, and it weighed 34 pounds!!! I need to get lighter weight food, I guess).

 The humidity was, however, in the 85% range. Sure Foot and I were both sweating buckets in no time. 

Doesn’t get much easier

The get-your-shoes-wet pasture land. 

Along the Wallkill Nature Preserve

Swans

Okay, maybe it does get easier

Lots of board walking today. These were treacherously slippery. 

We walked almost 3/4ths around the Wallkill Nature Preserve before starting the climb (after the board walking) up Pochuck Mtn. At the beginning of the climb, there was an odd water source. It was a spigot on the backside of an abandoned house (The National Park Service owns the house).

Water we don’t have to filter!

The climb up Pochuck was pretty long, and involved some steep rocks at times, but overall, was merely sweatifying. 

Not much view for the effort. 

At the bottom, we eventually came out to the beginning of a .9 mile boardwalk through the swamp, and over a suspension bridge over Pochuck Creek. 

Easy walking, but oh so hot!

My solution to the hot exposed boardwalk. 

The suspension bridge. 

We got back in the shade of the woods, then popped out into a cow pasture. 

The cows were smart and stayed in the shade. 

At the other end of the cow pasture was a road that lead to Mitch’s Roadside Cafe. We could have gone across the street to Heaven Hill Farm and had a much larger choice of food and drink, but a hot dog, Coke, and Gatorade was all I needed. 

He was playing some 70s and 80s music (and singing along).

This was just the break and refuel that we needed, because the next section was called the “Stairway to Heaven”. As you might guess, it was a climb up rocks (some of which were arranged stair-like, many that were not). This is a very popular hike, so there were quite a few people. About .4 from the top, there was a spring. Sure Foot and I were filtering some water (and drinking a bunch), when a group of people came by. The guy was very excited that we were thru-hiking. He seriously offered to carry my pack the rest of the way to the top! I declined, but I thought that was a very generous offer!

Does not do it justice!

Way off in the distance was where we started the climb. 

Mailbox with a log book at the summit. 

Somehow, we missed the Pinwheels Viewpoint. It wasn’t at the summit. Neither of us had any desire to go back down to it. Besides, there would have been a bunch of people there. 

We had planned to go to the Wawayanda Shelter tonight, but when we got to the creek at the bottom of Heaven Hill, Sure Foot noticed there was a nice little campsite near the creek. If we went to the shelter, we would have to carry water about a mile uphill. Tomorrow was only going to be 12.2 miles, so we decided to camp where we had access to water. Tomorrow will now be 15.3 miles. 

Nice little campsite

When we were just getting ready to fix our dinners, a mom, Danea and her four kids 2 boys, 2 girls, Trail names, Blaze-11, Boomerang-9, Angel Wings-6, and The Beast-4) came hiking south. Danae asked if we were “thrus”. We said we were. They are also thru-hiking! There have been jumping around doing various sections. For this 9 mile section, dad, Olan, had dropped Danea and the kids off, then drove around to the beginning of the boardwalk, parked the car, and was hiking north. When mom and the kids got to the car, they would drive around to where they started, and pick up dad. 

The family is from Chad in Africa. They are American physicians who run a hospital in Chad. They’ve been there for 10 years. I wish I had taken a photo of mom and the kids (and dad too when he went by). They were an awesome family. It’s possible we may see them again. They haven’t summited  Katahdin yet. 

Anyway, today was a good mix of easy and hard, but by far the hardest part was the heat and humidity. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little cooler...we’ll see.