Late today heavy rain is expected from the remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon—up to 2-3 inches of rain from tonight for the next 36 hours or so. This change in the weather made me reevaluate my previous plan. I should probably avoid hiking tomorrow as the storm is passing through. That means either a town stop or perhaps stay in an AT shelter somewhere.
After consulting the trail guide, the next couple towns don’t have good lodging options. There won’t be enough time for me to make it to Unionville, my next planned resupply stop. And I don’t have enough food to hole up in a shelter for an extra day. So, what to do?
I decided to make a detour to a small grocery in a town about a mile off trail to pick up enough food for an extra day or two, then make my way to a shelter that I can reach by the end of the day. I plan to spend tomorrow hanging out at the shelter which will probably be boring, but restful since the heavy rain and wind will keep me inside. The shelter also has a bear box which will simplify food storage as well.
After a couple hours of hiking I passed a gas line clearing and was entering the tree line again. Just ahead a bear and I surprised each other, perhaps 25 feet apart. We looked at each other for a second and I told him he’d better run and started banging my poles together. He decided to run and jumped up to a granite outcrops on one side of the trail. He then decided that wasn’t where he wanted to go and jumped down to go back across the trail in the other direction. At this point he was committed to running away and I took out my phone to see if I could get a picture or video. He then ran into the cleaning giving me a great view as he made his way away. He started to slow down in the clearing and I encouraged him to leave again.
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After the excitement I continued on. I made my way to the side trail leading to Greenwood Lake Grocery and diverted into town. It was about a two hour round trip and I was back to the trail. From there, the trail had little elevation change but had a lot of rocks and went up and down the granite hilltops and outcrops for a few hours. This was fairly slow going. But I did cross into New Jersey in the afternoon, marking another AT milestone.
I did notice two interesting things late in the day: first, much of the rock in this area has a purple tint. I don’t recall seeing anything like it so far.
Secondly, rhododendrons suddenly appeared along the trail today. This was their first appearance as well.
And, finally, I came across an ATV with two guys in it driving on the AT. They stopped as I got close and I asked whether they knew they were on the Appalachian Trail. The driver said yes and that much of this area was private property. We were both polite about it but I highly doubt the agreement with the property owner allows motorized vehicles on the trail. I thought I’d discuss this with someone involved with trail matters when I had a chance.
I reached the shelter before 4pm. It started raining lightly around 5pm. I was the only one in the shelter for a while. Then a NOBO section hiker called Heavyweight joined me. He is from central Pennsylvania and is hiking from there to the Hudson River.