Day 32: Wildcat Shelter

Start: Warwick Drive-In Movie Theater (AT mi 1365.1) Stop: Wildcat Shelter (AT mi 1376.8). Today’s miles: 11.7 miles. Total AT mileage: 352.1 miles States Completed: Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey

There are good days on trail, and then there are *not as* good days on trail. AKA: today kinda sucked. Which annoys me, because technically the day was beautiful and would have been a fantastic day if today was spent say—on a boat, or swimming off a dock, or absolutely anything other than backpacking over more freaking technical rock scrambles. Ugh.

Well, let me back up. I woke up on my flat pad sliding slightly in my tent.. I had previously woken up to restake one side of my tent when the whole thing slid down hill, sometime say around 2:30am. I also had the pleasure of waking up multiple times before that because of the movie playing and the cars coming and going with their headlights shining at the tents. We expected that though.

I was all the way awake and back from the port-a-potty before 6am. I packed and Lizard and I walked to the bagel store in the shopping center next to the drive-in. Everyone but FarOut and HotSauce beat us to it and were waiting by the grocery store for the ride they arranged yesterday. We didn’t prearrange anything yesterday, personally because I wasn’t really sure what time I’d wake up and I didn’t want to feel rushed if I didn’t have to.

We got our bagels and drinks, were sitting there eating inside when I pointed to the 2 trucks outside and jokingly said to Lizard, “one of those need to take us to the trailhead.” Well, one of the guys in one of the trucks (the bigger one) came in and got a coffee. He saw us and our packs and started asking questions.. and then-I’ll be damned if he didn’t offer to drive us to the trailhead! He was meeting a friend in the state park on the way to go bike riding. PERFECT.

As he drives through the parking lot, I see our group of friends: Curmudgeon, Cholula, Derby, TBird, TownLegs, DoubleDecker, Smiles. All still waiting for their ride. It either came early and took some of the other hikers before these guys got there, or she hadn’t shown at all. I giggle a little and point them out to our new trail angel, Mike. We tell him we know them and their ride must have failed, and would you believe he stopped, moved around some stuff, and we packed every single one of them in! Seriously!
He drops us off and we head out at different speeds and paces. I start off decently quick for me, my shin isn’t bothering me, life is good.. but I’m already starting to get sticky and it’s not even 8am yet. It’s going to be another scorcher of a day. Which is great when you have a pool or lake or beach or air conditioned anything. When you’re carrying all you own on your back and your back also has your shirt sweated to it like it’s painted on-it’s flipping awful.

I slowed my pace after a bathroom stop and wrote out yesterday’s blog post. I typically do this at the end of the day before bed (like I am now) but I was watching a movie and 3 beers deep before that first glorious slip into sleep. I just couldn’t even attempt to recall my day-and I’m not ashamed of that for half a second. I slowly walked and wrote, the trail was soft and kind, and I was still in the belief that it might not be that hot or hellish if the terrain is like this and the canopy of trees keeps my body shaded.

I got to the New Jersey/New York state line just before 10 am.. Curmy, Cholula, Lizard, TBird, TownLegs, Poptart, and Frosty were there. I got some pictures of the stateline and sat down for a break to finish writing the post and upload some pictures. It was beautiful, we finished another state, one which was very kind to us after Pennsylvania. We were only planning to get to the next shelter, a whole 11.7 miles total, which feels like a “low mileage” day these days. Plus, somewhere up ahead was a creamery to hangout and eat icecream at. Cool.

I sat, I wrote, I smiled. And then I walked into New York and all hell seemed to break loose. It was a lot of walking on huge rocks, much like Stone Mountain.. like-rocks that just don’t seem to end. Which was fine when my shoes had tread on them. They don’t now. It’s terrifying to go to climb a scramble and have your foot slip, and then have the foot that’s supposed to catch you slip, too. These rock walls had pretty views, but they were so very exposed. I actually had to put on sunscreen, although with the way I was profusely sweating, I couldn’t tell you how useful it was.

It went on and on like this for what seemed like eternity. Rock walk up to rock scramble requiring you to throw your trekking poles up and drag yourself up to them, rock walk into a patch of woods just long enough to make you cuss when you see you’re going right back out to another rock scramble. Over and over and over again. It was like heaven greeting you to walk back into the shade of the woods-but even then you’d pour sweat like you just stepped out of a shower.
I caught up to TBird and TownLegs at a creek crossing. They showed me where to go down to get “into” the small waterfall. And oh boy did I! I spent a solid 30-45 minutes in that little spot. For 10 minutes at least I stood in the water with my head in the waterfall just drenching my scalp. I flung my hair back like how those Instagram models fling their hair in fancy pools.. except no one was there to witness it LOL

I was completely content for a solid 15 minutes after I got my shoes back on. Then it was right back into the sun and I could no longer tell what was water from the creek and what was sweat. I was chugging water like a lunatic. And then, only 2 hours into New York, I rolled my ankle. I had just been then thinking about how good my shins feel and how thankful I am to the people that helped me with it.. Lizard, TBird, and HoneyBadger for the stretches, FarOut for the KT tape. When I rolled it, I felt and heard the pop and crack.. I saw only white and then when my vision returned I almost puked. I leaned on my trekking poles and hobbled over to some shade about 4 steps away, and in clear view of the new rock scramble ahead. I tossed town my poles, my bag, and sat and gently as I could and propped my foot on my bag. It wasn’t swelling like I thought it would, so I was starting to think I didn’t roll it as bad as I thought I did-but that original pain was something sickening.

I decided I’d finish working on uploading pictures on the blog for yesterday’s post, and rest my foot for a while. Not too long after the whole incident, maybe 10 minutes-you know long enough to have the “what if I just ended my hike? What if it really starts to swell? How will I get my ass off this mountain if I can’t walk?” questions come up- FarOut and HotSauce appeared. I was instantly happier, and suddenly less worried about my predicament. They sat with me a few, told me about their morning of trying to hitch in and it taking awhile and then how irritated they were with the heat, too.

Eventually, we got talking about the creamery and decided the best thing to do is to carry on, as long as I could walk. HotSauce helped me stand and test out my foot-no sharp shooting pain and I was able to hold pressure on it. Ok, cool, I just panicked because of how painful it had been. I can walk on it! So we moved on to rock scramble after rock scramble followed by a slew of cuss words from my mouth. They were kind enough to stay just ahead of me until they were sure I was ok. We took a break for water and a snack, and then after what felt like a lifetime, we got to the creamery (they a good bit ahead of me).

Everyone we knew practically was there. I got in line, TownLegs got me fresh water.. ok, life is getting better. Professor came strolling up slowly and I ended up getting his ice cream for him so he wouldn’t have to stand in the line (it was at least 15 deep), and he got me some trail magic AND toted my pack up to the “hiker hill” all of our people were at. I had ice cream and Gatorade and water surrounded by people l enjoy a whole hell of a lot.

Afterward, I took it very slow on the last 2 miles to camp. I called and talked to mom, thankful for the easy terrain. Which then changed into another rocky disaster with a mile left to go. Awesome. Professor caught up to me and we caught up to lizard. We slowly made our way, the steep drops of the rock edges being the hardest on my ankle. Cholula called and told me there’s a side trail to look out for that will re-route me around the really rough rocky spots. I told Professor but lizard already got away from us, although I’m pretty sure she loves the challenge the rocks bring. I told Professor about the side trail and he opted to go with me on the easier terrain “to make sure you’re ok,” lol – Professor is a total badass, out here hiking the AT at 70 years old. He took a bit of a beating from the rocks today, too, and even broke one of his trekking poles. I felt better having him hike with me.

We met Lizard where the 2 trails meet, and she said it was tough for sure, confirming my decision was the right one for me. We let her head out in front of us and slowly made our way to camp. We set up, ate dinner, talked. Professor is staying in the shelter, but the rest of us (Poptart, Frosty, a couple I don’t know, Lizard, Derby, Cholula, Curmy, FarOut and HotSauce) are all camped down the hill a bit. Poptart let me use some cortisone cream on an awful heat rash I’m brewing (well, it’s already brewed and it’s along my panty line on my butt, waist and hips, and let me tell you, that rash did NOT help improve my mood today lol). I’m laid out in my tent, thankful it’s not see through-as I’m trying to air out all my ailments without my sticky/sweaty clothes on. If a bear runs through camp tonight, it’ll be real awkward for me. Seems worth it, though.