Wildcat Shelter NY to NY17 Arden Valley Rd 10 miles
NY17 to Stealth Campsite 8 miles
18 miles total
New York is starting to irritate me. The trails here are tough to get up to any kind of good speed because of the rocks and the constant ups and downs. The terrain is steep both up and down and you can’t really get a pace going. Whoever blazed New York had an evil sense of humor. There are many places where there’s no particular reason to go up and down, you could just follow a line just below the ridge; but no, up and down and up and down. Bastards! There were quite a few places where we were scrambling up and over rocks, foregoing our poles for handholds and clambering down backwards in some places. In one section there was a ladder to get you up the rock face. I bailed over a log in the morning and rolled to the outside on some rocks. I thought I had broken my guitar (and a few other things) but I got up and all my parts seemed to be working properly. The final plunge into NY17 was so steep I was having trouble slowing down at times. They call that section “Agony Grind” and I’m grateful to the hiking gods that I didn’t have to go up the bastard. When we go down to the gap, Rolex was there with his girlfriend Barb to pick us up. Oh yeah, I forgot, it was raining too. Cyclone and I changed in the middle of the road under the canopy of Rolex’s hatchback door. Rolex was taking us in to get a last meal together until I get finished in September. We went to TGI Friday’s and I had one of everything. I was hoping to pick up gaiters but they didn’t have any outfitter nearby and Rolex had to get back home. I picked up a nex Under Armor shirt at Modell’s and I’ll be wearing Purple until September now. I needed a long sleeve UA so I wouldn’t get sunburn on my arms. I don’t like putting sunscreen on my skin and I do need to protect my tattoo. I grabbed the rest of the gear I would need from Cyclone and my pack was about 60 pounds. I don’t know that for sure but I’ll find out the next place I go. That sucker is REALLY HEAVY. The two of them did interviews for the film and I loaded up and got out of there. The next rise was tough with the new weight but I can go at my own pace and stop when I want now. Hiking solo is much simpler logistically; however, you can’t have a real conversation about anything with people you don’t really know. I like meeting new folks though so I’m not worried about the loneliness factor, in fact, I’m kind of relieved they split because now I can do the sort of things that I did tonight:
It was rough going but I wanted to make sure I got a bunch of miles in. There was this thing in the trail book that said “Lemon Squeezer” and me and Cyclone were wondering what it was; well, I found out. I filmed a clip of me trying to get through there with a pack on. It’s these two huge boulders and a narrow chute between them where you and a pack can hardly get through. It looks like you can’t get through but it had been raining a little so I slid through it. Them there was this wall thing right afterwards that you have to actually climb. It was hard to find the handholds. It looks easy in the video but that’s because it was the second time I had done it. It rained pretty heavy on and off all day after that and I was getting soaked. I was walking in squishy boots for hours. There was nothing I could do. I really need to get a pair of gaiters. When I got to fingerboard shelter there was no water and I was bone dry. I would have to walk to a lake about a mile away. I was pretty tired but they told me that if I walked down the trail a little further it was close to the lake and I could just camp somewhere. I decided to take off, it would be getting dark soon though. The Christian Brothers and Dad (as I’m calling them) graced me with a blessed (two syllables) liter of untreated water. I wondered, briefly, if you have to treat water that has been blessed or if it’s just given as a blessing then maybe it still needs to be treated. Since it came from a still pond, I figured to go with the God helping those that help themselves and I treated it, threw in some flavoring and gulped it down. The Christian Brothers and Dad are a family of four brothers and their Father is the principal of a religious school. They are very nice and say cool things like “God bless you” and cook pizza in a funky contraption with a computer CPU fan and a No. 10 can. They probably saved my life. I got to the road and hung a right to go to Tiorati Lake. They said there were showers there too but by the time I got there they were closed. Everything was closed except the soda machine which charged me two dollars for a one-dollar, orange soda. I had put a five in the dollar slot hoping it would work and then they only gave me three of those dollar coins back; although, it was neat because I have never seen those particular dollar coins before. I wondered, briefly, if they were real. I eventually found a legitimate bathroom that was open and it had a hand dryer! I was there until well after nightfall trying to dry my socks and underwear after washing them with fresh water in the sink. The socks never dry because they are so full of salt so I rinse them out when I can and then try to let them dry. Dry socks are more puffy and it makes a big difference on your feet in the rocks. I’m wearing two pair at a time now. By the time I got out of there it was really dark and I had nowhere to camp so I hoofed back up the road to the trail and just started walking in the night. I can’t find my headlamp so I just kind of felt it out until I couldn’t be sure whether or not I was on the trail. I pulled out my sleeping bad to see if my headlamp was in there but I couldn’t find it. It probably fell out and is on the trail right in front of my face and I can’t see it. I still have to hang a bear bag and set up camp somewhere with no light. This is going to be interesting. Thunder was booming off in the distance and I could see by occasional lightning flashes, expecting to see a bear appear in front of me at any moment. I put on all my rain gear and covered my pack and realized I have a light on my camera, although it’s really bright and I wasn’t supposed to be camping here. I managed to find a tree to hang my bear bag and I was searching for a rock to tie to the rope when I hear this crazy noise about 50 yards away. It almost sounded like one of those impact drills that a pit crew uses to bolt on the tires. Then it happened again. I was hoping it wasn’t a bear telling me I was too close to its cubs. And then I heard the next worse thing I could have heard: Beep Beep Beep just as my battery died on my camera, enveloping me in a thick cloak of darkness, pregnant with fear and the occasional lightning burst, oh yeah; and the sound again. Suddenly that last shelter seemed like a really nice place to be. Too bad I would have a hell of a time finding my pack with no light and no idea where I was.
I found my pack after a few minutes of stumbling around in the wet blueberry bushes as my night vision slowly came back. I took off the cover, fished around until I found another battery, loaded the camera and went back out to find a better tree, presumably better because it was not in the vicinity of the sound of the pneumatic lug driver. At least, I was hoping it was just a pneumatic lug driver, or a deer. If I remember correctly, deer make this funky sound like that when they want you to skedaddle-most-prompt or clearing their nostrils or something. . I was clinging to the deer theory while I hung my bear bag and made it back to my hammock. I never really got my socks to full dry and my feet have been pickled now for a couple of days. I got in my hammock just as the rain started pouring again. Good timing. I hope the rain dampens the smell of the bag of GORP that I forgot was in my pack, DAMN! Sleep eventually came until I was awakened again by that pit crew just outside my tent!
David AKA “Mister Gentle Spirit”
Website
http://www.wbafinc.org/
Photos:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/WBAF1
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