Originally, I had wanted to take the opportunity of unemployment to hike across the state on New York on the Appalachian Trail. After taking some suggestions from experienced hikers, a shorter 2-night and 2-day trip was formulated to start at the Delaware Water Gap, hike to camping on Lake Owassa, then continue on to High Point, NJ. Then came Hurricane Irene and totally screwed up my hiking party.
Not really. It turned out to be a fantastic day for a hike and a lesson to me that I am not prepared to go backpacking overnight yet. Five hours of hiking was exhaustive, feels great though.
The night before the hike Lauren, Beth Anne, and I went to go see Flogging Molly somewhere in New Jersey. It's been a while though since we've gone to a show and some essential things were forgotten. Beth Anne and Lauren forgot to wear real shoes instead of flip flops and I forgot my ear plugs. Lauren obtained a split toe nail from someone stomping on her foot and my ears haven't stopped ringing since the opening band's first song. This had an effect on our hiking preparation.
Lauren couldn't wear regular hiking boots because the toe space was too tight and it hurt her to even try to get the shoe on her foot. She decided to wear these special water walking shoes which have a large space for the toes but are a size too big. I don't actually own hiking boots so wore ninja addidas slip-ons. After looking up directions in a trail guide of the Appalachian Trail that Beth Anne bought for the hike, we headed out to Fedora Cafe to pick up some picnic sandwiches then got on the road to the Delaware Water Gap (forgetting the trail guide at home, oops).
Along the way we stopped in Buttzville for a pitstop and some snacks: Lauren got some fries and I got a whole pickle!
Continuing along, we made it to the trailhead by 1:30 and proceeded to hike the absolutely beautiful, serene, lush, and wrong trail to Sunfish Pond.
We hiked along a creek, crossing over about six times then hiked through a rock bog and climbed a slate garden to reach one of New Jersey's seven natural wonders. Once we got to the pond we looked more closely at the map to discover the true trail was much more wide and used white blazes not lichen green. Oops.
Lunch was delicious and we shared our sandwich bread with the fish and frogs and tadpoles on a bench IN the pond. While munching I saw a kingfisher dive into the water and pull up a pumpkinseed sunfish. Some hikers were walking by and were talking about p values.
After finishing our lunch we returned to the car via the Appalachian Trail, for real this time. We spotted a family of deer and chipmunks on the return trip.
At the trailhead we tried to retrace how we missed the trail in the beginning but couldn't figure out how we went wrong. Doesn't matter, we made it to the trail and we got to hike about three miles on the trail that stretches from Georgia all the way to Maine. It's kind of amazing to be there and to feel part of something that connects so many states and crosses so many borders.
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