• Appalachian Trail 2010

    New England

    Yesterday we finally made it to New England, but my southern mind already thought I was there the minute we crossed the Mason/Dixon line and into PA. Apparently no one else thinks that PA, NJ and NY are in New England…oh well. We are officially in Connecticut and in a few short days, Massachusetts. I am looking forward to blitzing through those states and getting to Vermont. It has been very warm and humid here and I didn’t realize that other parts of the country had heat induced afternoon thunderstorms like Florida. Yesterday we had done about 9.5 miles and Chris had jumped in 10 mile River for a swim.…

  • Appalachian Trail 2010

    Rocksylvania, New Bearsy….New Deli?

    Well, we’re on the NJ/NY border eating at a deli and it has internet! WOOHOO! So, as my brother posted, we made it through Pennsylvania…aka: Rocksylvania or what others called Rocksylsnakethornia. We know two people who gave the finger to PA on the downhill into Delaware Water Gap…that’s how much PA is hated by the AT crowd. The first 1/3 to 1/2 isn’t bad, up to Duncannon. It just gets suckier with each miles after that. Not only that, we got on one ridge that had zero water for 17 miles. Ugh. Up until then water has been pretty frequent and plentiful. I guess our most interesting day was the…

  • Appalachian Trail 2010

    PA/NJ

    Misti called me this evening. They are spending the night in a hostel on the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border at Delaware Water Gap. They spent their wedding anniversary on the trail yesterday. Today they were able to celebrate it with a short 13 mile day and a steak dinner. They’ll be resupplying soon in Unionville.

  • Appalachian Trail 2010

    Snakes!

    One other thing PA is known for are the copperheads and timber rattlers that hang out in the rocks. We were at a shelter just inside the PA border one morning when Chris had just gotten out of the shelter and onto the wood platform below. I’d just let the air out of my mattress when I thought I heard someone else letting theirs out too. Chris looked at his electronics bag thinking it was making the noise, when we looked at each other and I said that I thought it was a snake. Sure enough, right behind my boots was a timber rattler, pissed off that we’d woken up.…

  • Appalachian Trail 2010

    Thoughts on Half Way

    We officially passed halfway on Saturday morning. It was exciting to see the sign and we let out some whoops and yells. Pretty much everyone you talk to feels like we’ve already done way more, but of course you look at the map and there is a long way still to go. But, we’re doing pretty darn well. The shelter registers are starting to show fewer and fewer familiar names. Many names that I recognize are ones that I’ve never met but they are a week to two weeks ahead. We know a few people, maybe three, that are ahead about a week that we’ve hiked with, but other than…