Boardwalkin’

Today is July 13, and it’s kind of a special day, because it is the editor's birthday. And I miss her today on her birthday.

I’m currently at the Wawayanda Shelter, which is adjacent to Wawayanda State Park at mile 1,366. I'm still in New Jersey, and I did about 17 trail miles today, plus another half mile or so getting from Unionville to the trail this morning. So, a pretty decent day.

I woke up this morning in Unionville, after an absolutely horrible night's rest. For one thing, it was very hot. And then the church bell in the town rang every hour on the hour until 11, which is well past hiker midnight. Also, just when I had successfully dozed off, some kids in town decided that it was still close enough to the Fourth of July that setting off a bunch of fireworks would be a good idea.

So that startled me awake. After that, sleep became very elusive for the rest of the night. Then, at around 4:45, a very ambitious rooster started doing his thing, and the church bells got going again at 5:00 a.m. It was raining, so I spent a while just lying awake in my tent and waiting for a window in the weather. When one finally came, I quickly packed up, ate, did all those things, and headed out of Unionville by about 6:45. At that point, it had started to rain again, but at least it wasn't raining hard.

I hiked through a massive array of different landscapes and conditions today. I started off just walking through the woods. Then there was a rather lengthy road walk, which then led to a walk around the perimeter of some wetlands and then through a swamp. There were a bunch of boards laid out to help hikers get through the swamp, but they were super slippery. So that required some careful stepping and pretty slow going.

Not long after that section, the trail crossed the road and wound up in another wetlands, where there was an absolutely lovely boardwalk.

After the boardwalk, I came to a road crossing where a lot of hikers tend to get off the trail and go into Vernon, New Jersey. And Vernon actually has some meaning for me, because I grew up in New Jersey, and that's where the premier ski resort was in the state. I got to ski there a few times, and it also happens to be home of Action Park, which was this pretty infamous amusement park. I don't think it’s is in business anymore, but its nickname was “traction park,” because so many people got injured there in the ’80s. There’s actually a documentary about the place and how dangerous it was. It's a pretty low-budget production, but I found it incredibly amusing. I went to Action Park a few times growing up, and I can say that the horror stories in that documentary are pretty accurate. [Wife note: The doc is called “Class Action Park.”]

There was a hot dog stand at the road crossing, which was fantastic. So I stopped to have a couple of hot dogs, a soda, and some chips. I was fueling up — and kind of mentally preparing — for a rather steep climb I was about to do.

It was a stretch of trail just over a mile long with an elevation gain of about 950 or so feet. It was also another popular day hiker spot, but oddly enough, I didn't see a single other hiker out today. I mean, when I was in Unionville, there were thru-hikers camping in the park with me. And I saw hikers at the Wits End Tavern, but for whatever reason, I seem to regularly find myself in some kind of reverse bubble where I just don't see a lot of other hikers. This campsite is hiker free at the moment, too, and it's 7:45. So I have reason to believe I could be here on my own tonight.

Anyway, I hiked up that incline after the hot dog stand, enjoyed a nice view, and then had a fairly straightforward hike for the rest of the day, though there were a couple of other decent climbs. New Jersey has some flat parts, but I definitely had some climbs today that were as challenging as anywhere else on the trail that I've encountered thus far.

It was a pretty warm day, and the sun came out and stayed out after the rains this morning. So I was very sweaty, as usual, and despite the sun, I never really dried out from the rain. I’m hoping we get some relief from the temperatures overnight. I’m not really sure what my plans are for tomorrow. Water is quite scarce over the next few days, so I need to sort of plan around where I can find water, rather than where the best campsite might be. A lot of the campsites along this section of the trail don't have water sources, so I might end up going to a hostel tomorrow night, rather than risking finding myself somewhere with no water. So we'll see what happens.

[Aaron, no details on it, but this is clearly Trail Magic. Count it?]