New York and Company: Days 26-32 - The Trek (2024)

Day 26: 15.9 AT miles

I woke up super early from my campsite at the drive-in theater, probably due to the road noise, packed up, and headed to a nearby deli to get a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel. As I was grabbing my sandwich, a worker asked if I’d “rolled up,” which, apparently, means “did you pay?” in these parts. The more you know.

I headed to the road and stuck out my thumb. It was early, so there weren’t a ton of cars out, but a man in a Fiat pulled over after about five minutes. He said he’d give me a ride if my bag could fit, and it did.

I quickly passed into New York State. As some of y’all know, I’ll be moving to the city after my hike ends in October. Thus, this section spurred a lot of reflection about what’s to come.

From a viewpoint on the trail, the city was visible in the distance beyond some mountains. An American flag waved in the wind. In my circles, there can be some pretty defeatist mentality about the state of our country. A lot of people say that the AT restored their faith in humanity and, while I wouldn’t say I’m quite there yet, I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The amount of political talk on trail has been exceptionally limited, which is such a breath of fresh air, particularly in an election year. I can surmise that a lot of people around me wouldn’t agree with my opinions, and, for once, it just doesn’t matter. And it shouldn’t matter so much as it does. We all have a shared belief in the trail and that trumps the other stuff—if only more of us could find points of common ground. I suppose it helps that the AT attracts people from well beyond the US.

Around the afternoon, I did a small blue blaze to Bellvale Creamery, which was most definitely worth it. Several hikers I’d been leapfrogging with—Carlo, Silent, Giggles, Sonic, Local, and Canada Dry—had the same idea and we enjoyed the break.

The shift into New York brought new terrain challenges. This section had many rock slab walks and even a metal ladder embedded in a cliff to make it possible to climb. Unlike Pennsylvania, however, these rocks lead to views. And blueberries, often.

There weren’t great camping options that day, so I found my first true stealth spot. There’s a difference between “dispersed” and “stealth” camping, in that the latter is making your own site that isn’t visible from the trail and coming in late and leaving early, whereas the former is usually closer to the trail and already established. It was successfully stealthy, as a friend passed by my site in the morning and did not notice my presence.

Not every part of the trail allows stealth camping, which can be annoying since you have to plan your day around existing tent sites and shelters. Stealth camping makes me less afraid of men, but more afraid of animals. Often, animals aren’t used to humans being in stealth sites and are much more active than in established ones. It’s more LNT to use high-impact (already cleared) sites, but, on some parts of trail, these can be ten or so miles apart and don’t always line up well with desired mileage. As someone who likes to hike for twelve or so hours a day, it can be stressful in sections where I have to make it to a marked campsite.

Day 27: 13.6 AT miles

Sections of today’s hike felt like they’d be better as day hikes. There was a super steep descent to a road that was redeemed by trail magic at the bottom in the form of Ghirardelli brownies and Gatorade.

I entered Harriman State Park, which meant stealth camping was not allowed until Vermont. Goodie.

A fun section called the Lemon Squeezer came soon. Again, this was made a lot harder by having a full pack—climbing was involved.

I took a blue blaze to a picnic area that promised an ice cream vending machine. As I descended into the parking lot with a German couple I’d been flip-flopping, a couple of people asked us what you could see on the trail. The woman responded, “Well, it goes to a water tower, then to the Appalachian Trail, which goes to Georgia or Maine. Maine is a little closer.” I laughed about that one for a while.

Unfortunately, bathos reared its ugly head and I got to the ice cream vending machine only to find it out of order. Rats.

I got a snack from the working machines and made a plan. My friend from college who lives nearby was picking me up that day so I needed to find a road crossing at which that would be convenient to do so. It probably would have been easier to do at Bear Mountain, but the terrain had been proving more difficult in New York, and my back-to-back 18 or 19-mile days of Jersey were, again, infeasible.

We settled on a random back road that ended up having no service. Thankfully, we figured it out. We went to Chipotle for dinner, which I had been craving for pretty much the whole hike.

In talking to my friend about the hike, I realized how my background allows me to see doing something like this as an option. I’ve noticed that most Americans I meet hiking the AT are from somewhere in the middle of the country. There aren’t a lot of coastal elites.

A simple way to say why I’m doing the AT is because I want to and because I can. I’m able to want to do the AT because the values and hopes instilled in my youth created an environment in which the idea of hiking for over four months is thrilling rather than crazy. Things back home were never perfect or cookie-cutter, in the way the perfect American life is portrayed in the media. It’s not hard to want to go on a wild adventure when what you’re used to is neither exciting nor something to aspire to. I can do the AT because I worked hard in college to save money and was lucky to get a long time gap between college and work.

I think a lot of my peers see me as crazy for doing this. Well, I think the overarching single-mindedness wherein achieving high pay and professional success to a level as good as or better than your parents just to create a vicious cycle in which your children have to do as well or better than you is stifling as hell.

I was given a comfortable upbringing in a place I didn’t like very much. I feel no prerogative to cultivate any particular sort of life, beyond the desire to enjoy it. There’s no point in creating imaginary expectations.

Getting off and back on the trail so fast felt like whiplash. It didn’t make me want to quit—indeed, it was the opposite. My college life gave me a warped perception of real life: I need to learn more about what it means to be human.

Day 28: 13.8 AT miles

Before heading back to the trail, my friend and I went to a Stop and Shop so I could resupply—see what I mean about these grocery store names being weird as heck? We also went to a deli with 2.1 stars on Google Maps for the “authentic experience.” It was a pretty good bacon, egg, and cheese, and now I know to specify that I want salt and pepper when I order one out east. Some people add ketchup, but that’s gross.

I got a late start on the trail and the rocks were slippery. I fell down a little over a mile in and skinned my knee and finger. I slipped at least two more times this day and subsequently scraped up other fingers.

I finished my relisten to the Wild audiobook and further reflected on the forces that brought me out here. I felt somewhat emotional during the day, both due to the emotions of getting off and on trail and because the terrain was frustrating.

I got hopelessly lost on the trail. I’m not sure if it was the section that had been closed for so long at Bear Mountain, but the blazing was unclear and I fully took two wrong turns at a four-way intersection of trails. I kept looking at the map and it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress.

There was rain in the forecast, but I didn’t think it would come. I was wrong. Couple that with this section being one where you can only camp at designated sites, and I had few good options. I was going to have to pull a late one to reach the first tent site about three miles out of the park. Of course, this involved a steep descent to the lowest point on the trail and an immediate climb back up.

As I was climbing Bear Mountain, I got a feeling it was about to thunderstorm and I was up pretty high. I looked at my options and booked a room in the Bear Mountain Inn which was a couple miles away at the bottom of the mountain. Just after, it started raining. And it kept going, turning into a lightning storm. As I went through a part of the park that had been completely washed out by a storm last year, I was sprinting down the rock steps as fast as I could. I still got soaked.

I was planning on camping this night, but I didn’t have the energy to go any farther. I was soaked, though most of my stuff was dry in my bag liner. I didn’t have the emotional energy to keep going.

As I reached the bottom of the mountain, I saw some ice cream vending machines. One worked—huzzah!

The inn was very nice, but it was a weekend, so it was quite expensive. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s okay to spend money to keep my psychological state up—if I’m not having fun, I’m not going to finish the hike. Plus, getting sick from being cold and wet would just mean more time and money wasted later on.

Day 29: 15.8 AT miles

I took my time getting ready, taking another shower just because it felt so good and I still didn’t feel completely clean. I packed up, using the iron to dry a couple of clothes items that had gotten soaked the previous day.

I checked out a little before 10 and checked the map. I saw that the zoo through which the trail runs was right ahead and that it opened, conveniently, at 10 am. It was also the lowest point on the AT. I’m not a huge zoo person, but it was certainly an interesting section of trail and, if nothing else, relatively flat.

There wasn’t much going on in the exhibits, but there were two black bears. Fitting, since we were at Bear Mountain. It’s a lot easier to get a picture of them when they’re behind a fence.

This was the lowest point on the trail, meaning I immediately started ascending after exiting the zoo and crossing the Hudson River. I decided to skip a particularly long blue blaze to a purportedly good view because I told myself I could just come back here at some point while I’m living in the city and do it then.

New York inspired a lot of thoughts about the future as I’ll be moving here in just over three months. For so much of my life, I romanticized going away to college, graduation serving as an event impossibly far into the future, both a beacon and a zenith. Now that it’s happened, there’s not one big goal to work toward. Sure, there are places I’d like my career to go, adventures I’d like to undertake, but I no longer have a one-track mind.

I thought a lot about finishing my thru-hike. I realized that I have made my plans contingent on everything going fairly right. I had just about four months and three weeks between graduating college and my first day of work. I took a week off after graduation and would love to have a couple before starting the job to, you know, find an apartment and stuff. I can always couch surf while I look, but it would be more enjoyable to have things lined up ahead of time.

It’s still very feasible for me to finish on time—or right against the wire—but I’ve accepted that if a few too many things go wrong, I’ll have to turn this into the longest ass section hike of all. I want to not get too caught up in finishing and enjoy the time I have on trail to the fullest. The miles will come if they’re meant to come.

I was planning on doing an about 13 or 14-mile day, stopping at a campsite marked on FarOut. I saw a porta potty was supposedly there and I’ve come to suffer with what my best friend calls “latchkey syndrome” wherein the knowledge of a place to use the bathroom begets the urge to use the toilet. I could always just dig a cathole, but when I’m within a mile of a privy or the like, I try to just make it.

I used the porta pot, but didn’t stay and camp as the site was visible from the road. It was getting later, but I decided I would just walk until I found a dispersed site. I eventually found one near a stream and set up just as the sky was getting dark. There were many fireflies—and also mosquitos. Just as I settled into bed, I heard music in the distance. I realized the site was relatively close to civilization and someone was having a house party, as people are wont to do at 9 p.m. on Saturday nights. Ah, well.

Day 30: 18 AT miles

This was a day in which I had little human interaction. The daily elevation profile is definitely increasing, but the sections in which day hikers abound remain relatively uncommon. I suppose there are many other people on the trail, they’re just mostly hiking in the same direction and at comparable speeds, so I only encounter them if we stop at the same places for long enough.

I have been often seeing a few people who are headed “SOBO to Maine.” Boomer and Quirk are using a car to move up the trail, parking at one end for the day and hiking in opposite directions. Dragonfly is also thru-hiking with a car, parking at the end of a multi-day stretch and shuttling to the other end to walk back to it.

This section of New York featured the “Telephone of the Wind,” at which you can “talk” to dead loved ones, which was not the kind of thing I wanted to see on Father’s Day. I have and do want to think about my father’s death and how it has impacted me while on trail, there are just better days on which to do that than others.

At some point in the day, I hit 400 miles, but I don’t think I noticed until the next day. Days really go by quite slowly when I don’t see other people.

I know some people are worrying about how I’ll do the flop part of my hike and get back to Harpers Ferry after Maine. It’s not something I’m devoting too much mental attention to; there are two good options. Either I’ll fly back to Ohio and stay at home for a few days, having my mom and whichever relative is free to tag along drive me back to the trail, or I’ll fly to D.C. and take the train back to West Virginia. It will depend on how I am feeling, the time I’m making, the cost of each, and what logistics make sense. Everyone who summits Katahdin needs a way to leave, so I’m sure the people around me will have insights.

Day 31: 10.9 AT miles

This marked one month on trail! I had a short day to the train station. There is a Metro-North station right on the trail, but it only runs on weekends, so I had to hitch into Pawling to an active stop. Next year when I’m living in NYC, I plan to take the train out to the AT and do trail magic for next year’s hikers. When I’m deep in the pain cave, I think about what foods I want most that can also survive a long train ride to plan what I’ll bring.

My brother was going to meet me at the train station, but I didn’t want the stress of getting there at a particular time, so I told him I’d handle it myself. I arrived well in advance of the afternoon train and was able to get food at a couple of different places—when the hunger is there, I have to capitalize on it.

The train took a while, requiring a couple of transfers. I am more of a car or walking person, but with apps these days, public transport isn’t that difficult to figure out. My brother lives in a suburb of the city and the train went through many similar such places.

I get such a bad feeling in the suburbs. I can imagine exactly the type of life I would live. Being someone’s wife, having their kids. Making career compromises to take the kids to soccer practice and science olympiad. Driving a prohibitively large SUV. Being someone who did interesting things in her youth but has now settled down.

My brother thinks the Northeast/New England is the best place to live in the country, maybe the world, and I strongly disagree. Thank goodness I like the city better than its surroundings. I still don’t think I could live there forever. I think I’d prefer it out west or in a happening southern city like Durham, where I went to college. Ah, yes, the existential dread of now being someone who “went to college” and no longer someone who is in it.

Being in the suburbs again affirmed to me why I’m on the trail. I’ve never wanted the “standard” path. I’ve never quite fit the mold of what I’m supposed to want out of life. I’m not going to be satisfied just checking the boxes of what makes a “perfect life.” I have a deep need for adventure and for satisfying needs that the traditional family path does not fulfill. It’s hard to make many of the people I care about understand that, though.

Day 32: 0 AT miles

I had all along planned to take a zero at my brother’s house and was debating between lazing around and going into the city. I was texting with one of my best friends the previous day when I realized he was conveniently there on vacation. We decided to meet for lunch and to spend some time exploring.

I took the train down into Grand Central and had the morning to myself. I took the subway to Wegman’s. After being on trail for a month—but also just generally—it felt like a magical place. I’ll definitely be returning to the grocery store when I move. After getting some resupplies, I charted a route to REI. I looked at my saved places on Google Maps and saw a bakery I wanted to try was on the way. I stopped in and got a pistachio croissant-like thing. I had a great pistachio Paris-brest last summer in the bay and have been trying to fill the void it left ever since.

I moved on to REI, which also felt like a wonderland. I got a new hiking shirt, as the one I’d been using had too short of sleeves and I’d been getting burnt. It also smelled quite bad, though I suppose that’s an occupational hazard.

I rendezvoused with my friend and we went to Chinatown and got some dumplings. The place we found gave us something like 15 dumplings and ten pork buns for ten dollars. Between us, we could not finish, though there is always room for ice cream.

We walked around for a bit then got tired and worked on a crossword. Next up was Trader Joe’s to finish my resupply. This store was in a bridge, giving it a cool interior. So that I could tell people I am on the hunt for apartments—people are often horrified that I have not found one yet, though I move in in October—I walked around the Upper East Side for a bit. There’s no point in me looking at specific places until September, though. No one rents out an apartment four months in advance and has it sit empty.

I got back on the train north and thought about my life post-trail. I’m excited to be moving to NYC and look forward to my job. Rather than the ennui the suburbs fill me with, the city has an undeniable sense of hope. People are all a little weird there and there’s less of an expectation to fit a certain mold.

Still, I have to be careful not to romanticize the future too much. I spent a lot of time anticipating the trail, and I need to remember to enjoy it in the moment, because I know one day far too soon I’m going to be sandwiched into the subway, smelling some stranger who is more rank than me on six days of no shower, wishing to be nowhere else than the middle of the woods. The grass is always greener; good thing we can just put on some polarized Goodrs and choose to make the most of the here and now.