We had some heavy rain overnight again, but stayed nice and dry. The skies were threatening again in the morning, but it blew out and it turned into a great day for hiking. The trail was a bit easier and less rocky today also, so that was a nice change of pace. That combination of positive factors and also a few days of getting back into the groove made today just a lot nicer overall.

In the morning, we went past High Point in Jersey.

High Point Monument

We hiked through a lot of low lying swamp areas, also. A lot of it had boards over it to protect the swamp.

Swamp hiking

The trail made its way up to the NJ / NY border and headed east. We went into Unionville, NY to grab maildrop #9 and some lunch. The pizza was pretty good. I have to say pizza in the north is way better than in the south. It’s just an indisputable and proven scientific fact.

After lunch, we made our way back out. We traversed through a protected bird area called the Wallkill preserve. It was reedy and swampy. I had a few glimpses of herons I think, but they were too far away to get a good picture.

Then we climbed up Pochuck Mountain, a short but steep climb.

View from Pochuck. The preserve is visible in the valley and High Point is in the background on the mountain range.

We camped about a mile or two from Pochuck near a little stream. There is some kind of youth camp pretty near here making a racket. Quiet down, you damn kids!!

Vital stats :
Miles hiked today – 19
Mood – improved
Physical state – good, not pushing as hard before Duncannon
Smell – worse than Bon Jovi’s armpits after a double encore of Dead Or Alive and Living On A Prayer
Song stuck in my head – I’m Free by The Rolling Stones

We stayed dry last night through a few minor storms. That was definitely one of the nicer camp spots we have had.

Most of the day was very warm and humid, rocky, buggy, and sweaty. Everything is wet, including all the rocks, so it was slippery and slow hiking. Jersey is pretty similar to PA in terms of hiking, but perhaps a little more challenging because it seems to constantly go through minor elevation changes. We might have had a few nice views, but it was so dreary that it was hard to tell. We had one view of Culver Lake in the morning.

Culver Lake

We also hiked past a little coffee shop, which provided a morning snack attack.

Sweet treats

We hiked over Rattlesnake Mountain (didn’t see any) and Sunrise Mountain (didn’t see any sun) today. Otherwise, it was pretty uneventful. We somewhat followed the rules of High Point State Park in that we camped kind of near the shelter. I think they wanted us to camp right by it, but I think a quarter mile is close enough. Whatevs.

Tomorrow we are hiking a half mile off trail to Unionville to get maildrop #9 and some pizza for lunch. After that, we will continue on through Jersey. Looking forward to some hopefully drier weather.

Vital stats :
Miles hiked today – 19.2
Mood – pushing onwards
Physical state – good
Smell – Jersey swamp filled with diapers
Song stuck in my head – When You Were Young by The Killers