Day 25 - Long Hill Road

​Day 25 - Long Hill Road

Starting location: Graymoor Pavilion

Ending location: Long Hill Road

Mileage today: 16.6 miles

Total Mileage: 282.3 miles

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today we woke up crazy early since we had a 30 min drive to be able to hike south today. We are doing 16.6 miles and it’s been challenging for Bombadil to stay motivated on these long days when it’s just trees and rocks and nothing super fun. Legolas just listens to his book and powers through the boredom. lol. 

We did get to see this cool graffiti up on top of the mountain when we started though, and this was the view from the top. 

The boys got to actually play with on old rotary phone. They were mesmerized! lol. I can’t believe the stuff we find in the trail. 

This was an old mining road we walked over. Nothing super exciting happened to be honest. 

The excitement came when we finished. We treated them to some delicious sandwiches from the Appalachian market. Amee and I had a Reuben. Simply amazing. 

There are 12 hikers here tonight. So we are getting a lot of NOBOs who started late Feb or early March. Salty and light are here. She is trying for her triple crown (AT, PCT & CDT). Salty has tripled crowned twice. He has over 30,000 trail miles! Unreal. 

Now off to bed. Less than 12 miles tomorrow. 

Night

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil 

Day 24 - Graymoor Pavilion

​Day 24 - Graymoor Pavilion #2

Starting location: 1777 parking lot 

Ending location: Graymoor Pavilion 

Mileage today: 11.2 miles 

Total Mileage: 165.7 miles

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today we got up and going at around 5:45 am. Left for the trail around 7 and started hiking around 7:30 am. Beautiful morning. Cool and sunny. We started the day with a climb up Bear Mountain. We unfortunately didn’t see any bears but did see a deer. 

Bear mountain going up was pretty nice. Here was a stretch of 201 steps. Glad I had planed on it being leg day today! lol. 

Once we got on top of Bear Mountain, this is what all the trail should aspire to look like. This was prime Triple A graded trail. We were in heaven. We could look all around and not worry about tripping one bit! Heaven. It was like this all the way from the top to the bottom of the mountain. I couldn’t believe it. 

This was at the top of Bear Mountain. We got to go up and get 360 degree views. We could see NYC from here again. The boys were soWe then had to walk around this lake as a detour due to construction going on. It was a paved shaded road so I wasn’t complaining. Was able to snap this beautiful reflection of Bear Mountain in the lake. 

Also some turtles were out sunning themselves. 

Then I forgot that the AT actually hikes through a small free zoo! So we got to see beavers, owls, a falcon and some hawks. Unfortunately, the bear died last year so even in a zoo we haven’t gotten to see a bear yet. Unreal! lol. 

Then we got to hike across the mighty Hudson River.  It was pretty amazing too. Not as impressive bridge as the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge though. 

That all happened in the first 6 miles of our hike. The last 6 miles were tough green tunne hiking over a couple mountains. Plus it got hot by then, so it was hard to stay motivated. I did bribe them with a drink at the Appalachian market at the end of our hike. The trail literally went through their parking lot. Talk about being customers to your doorstep! 

Again, we are staying at the pavilion. There are 9 of us hikers here tonight. Obviously  us three, plus 3 thru hikers (Tonto, BlueJay & Prophet). One section hiker and then 2 more rolled in after dark that we didn’t get to talk to. 

Well time for bed. 16.5 miler tomorrow with slack packs. So should be a fun day. 

Good night. 

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil. 

Day 23 - 1777 parking lot

​Day 23 - Greymour Pavilion #1

Starting location:  Fingerboard Shelter

Ending location: 1777 parking lot 

Mileage today: 11.7 miles 

Total Mileage: 266.6 miles

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today we woke up around 6:30 and it was still raining. Oh boy. Took off my dry clothes and put back on my wet cold clothes and started packing up. The boys weren’t too thrilled to have to put on the wet clothes but they begrudgingly did what they were told. lol. 

We figured we would take it easy today and only do 11.7 miles today. It stopped raining around 9 am and the sun finally came out around 2 pm. The state park we are in is absolutely beautiful. We passed the 1400 mile mark today, which I almost missed, but Legolas caught it. 

Hands down this the best built bridge on the AT. We are near the West Point and the cadets built it. First class. 

This is the top of Black mountain where we stopped to eat lunch. Such great views. If it was clear we could have seen NYC. Wasn’t in the cards today. 

Great view of the Hudson River. 

The mountain laurels are almost blooming. I can’t wait. I haven’t seen them in bloom yet, but they are so beautiful already. 

So when we finally made it to the 1777 parking lot around 2:30 pm, Amee drove us to this pavilion that is supported by the sisters of St. Francis. We dried things out and had dinner with Amee. Beef and eggs! Sooo good. 

Well goodnight everyone. Slack packing next two days! 

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil 

Day 22 - Fingerboard Shelter.

​Day 22 - Fingerboard Shelter

Starting location: Wildcat Shelter

Ending location: Fingerboard Shelter

Mileage today: 14.5 miles 

Total Mileage: 254.9 miles 

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today we woke up to more rain falling. We still packed up everything and got on the trail around 7:30 am. The rain fell pretty good till noon and then we basically walked through cloud after cloud. It was in the 50’s all day today. 

After hiking about 2 miles we came to our first serious waterfall. It was pretty amazing to behold. While the boys explored, I filtered some water. 

We finally met mom and Froning for lunch around 1:45 pm after hiking for about 10 miles. It was later than I had hoped but the bouldering was pretty intense with it raining. Legolas fell multiple times. The boys got Nutella sandwiches and Chex mix and fruit. I had a couple sardine wraps. Man were they delicious. 

Then we came to the lake in the above picture. It was so peaceful with the fog. Legolas thought it was the lake at Hogwarts. lol. We could have stayed there a long time, but we still had like 2.5 miles to the shelter. 

Then we came to this cave or so we thought. We actually hiked through it to the lemon squeezer, which is a pretty famous part of the trail. 

This is the “lemon squeezer”. It is a very tight passage. I barely fit through it, but Bombadil had no issues! lol. The boys really enjoyed it. 

Now this part we had to take the blue blaze around. We literally have no idea how anyone got up that way. It was taller than me and really had no place to climb up. Add the fact that it had rained and everything was slippery. I just didn’t want to go to the ER today! lol. 

Just some random things we saw on the trail. We wish we had some googly eyes to put on the rock monster. Then I just love seeing wild mushrooms. I need to learn how to identify them. 

Finally we made it to the shelter around 5:30 pm. Cooked dinner (rice and chicken), changed into dry clothes, hung up the wet clothes to try to dry (probably impossible since we are basically in a cloud with 100% humidity). Legolas is reading Dracula, and the fog and mist are making his book become real! lol. Well off to bed and hopefully we can get stuff dried out tomorrow if it sunny. 

God bless,

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil.