Day 96 William Brien Memorial shelter to Bear Mountain Bridge

Today's miles 10.1.  AT miles 1399.7

Another warm sunny day, we were walking for 8am again.  We only had 10 miles to go today but they were similar to yesterday, a collection of steep rocky ups and downs starting immediately with a short sharp steep rocky climb out from the shelter. Just after a mile we reached Black Mountain where we had hazy views of New York City's skyline about thirty miles away.  We'll see you in August New York!  We also could see the huge Hudson River, the rest of the views were the familiar forest for miles and miles.

We went up and over West Mountain then reached our last mountain for the day, Bear Mountain. Bear Mountain wins the award for best maintained, manicured even, trail.  Lovely stone steps and gravel paths made ascending and descending the mountain easy work compared to what's been thrown at us recently, we could tell we were in a popular tourist area.  The trail suddenly started getting very busy with people, we were near the top where there was a car park!  There was also one of our favourite, non natural, sights on the trail, a soda machine.  A cold coke goes down a treat on a hot sunny day.

The trail passed the Perkins Memorial Tower, it was busy with day trippers, before descending down to Bear Mountain Lake and Recreation Area. There was some ongoing trail work being done on the top section of the trail, a storage container even had a white blaze painted on it.  We could hear the busyness and smell the bbqs on the way down to the lake.  It was packed with people enjoying the sun on Memorial Day, like a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK.  Memorial Day is the unofficial start of the summer season when all the tourist attractions open. It also has the serious side of remembering past war veterans.  The Americans don't just bring a picnic though on their day out, they have a full blown BBQ's.  We watched people wheeling bbqs, tables, large cool boxes, bags of food etc. past us to find the perfect or rather the only spare space left for their family day out.  One rule all the public parks have out here is no alcohol, so there's no stupid drunken behaviour, just families having a great day.  There was a food stand selling burgers/hot dogs etc so we bought a hot dog.  A food stand like that on a UK bank holiday would have had enormous queues.  Not here, people made the effort to bring their own hot dogs.

The trail went from the lake through Bear Mountain Zoo and Museum.   A free attraction but a suggested donation of $1.  Not a big zoo but well laid out with lots of informative signs and local wildlife; foxes, coyote, woodchuck etc. and the main attraction, black bears.  The bear cage is at the lowest point on the Appalachian Trail at 120 ft.  There were two brown bears, one was having a great time in its pool playing with a ball and rope toy.

After the zoo we left the AT just before the Hudson River bridge, 0.3 miles short of 1400 miles, and walked along a half mile long side trail to Fort Montgomery past a historic site, strangely the visitor centre was closed.  We were hoping to stay at the Holiday Inn in Fort Montgomery. We hadn't pre booked because we never know for certain what day we'll arrive, we've not had a problem up to now getting accommodation.  It was another mile to walk to the hotel, hitch hiking is illegal in New York state, so before we walked there we phoned to check if they had a room, they had only one left but it was $350 plus tax!  We weren't paying that, it was advertised $110 which was expensive enough for us.  We phoned a couple more places in Fort Montgomery, all full.  We're not sure if it was because of Memorial Day, it is also Graduation weekend locally too apparently so all the hotels are full or have at least doubled their prices.  We eventually found accommodation about 3 miles away in Highland Falls at Fair bridge Inn, still double advertised price though at $149. Better than $350 though and it includes breakfast.  We managed to get a taxi ride with a scatterbrained taxi driver from Fort Montgomery to the hotel, we think we've arranged a pick up back to the trail in the morning!

Day 95 Wildcat Shelter to William Brien Memorial Shelter

Today's miles 19.6.  AT miles 1389.6

We had a tough but enjoyable day today.  We woke up to a blue sunny sky which was a nice change after a few cloudy showery days.  We left camp at 8am and after a couple of miles passed a lovely waterfall, Fitzgerald Falls.  The trail continued up steep rocky steps at the side of the falls. Steep rocky climbs and scrambles were the theme of the day, we were constantly going up and down rocky  mountain tops which slowed our pace down. 

We passed a box with trail magic first aid supplies.  We didn't need anything but I helped myself to some feminine necessities, non applicator tampons, they're not so readily available in the small shops over here.  We passed another trail magic cooler just after, but unfortunately that was empty.

We passed quite a lot of people out for the day, it was especially busy on the way to Island Pond Mountain, past a lake and to the 'Lemon Squeezer' - a narrow rock squeeze to climb through requiring the removal of packs. Straight after was a technical steep rocky ledge to climb up. Following us was a father and son duo,  Nigel helped them with their packs through the lemon squeezer and put his instructor head on helping the son and another lady up the rocky ledge.   After the Lemon Squeezer we crossed the New York Long Trail.  If we'd have followed that for 52 miles we'd have reached Manhattan.

More ups and downs and eventually we came to Tiorati Circle/Beach.   A very busy lake tourist spot, it was packed with people having bbq's next to their cars in the car park. There was also a Beach area by the lake.  We didn't go for the beach, just to use the free showers available.  It was so nice to get a shower again, I rinsed my clothes out this time too.  (Tomorrow we get a proper shower and laundry, we'll be in a town hotel.) We also had a nice cold coke and ice cream whilst there, small things please us, a well worthwhile hour break from our hike.

From Lake Tiorati we had a further four miles to go the reach our camp spot at the William Brien Memorial shelter.  Luckily the trail was quite easy for those last few miles and we managed to get a good pace going, eager to get to the shelter and rest.   Again due to the bank holiday weekend it was very busy and noisy, a large group were there, when we arrived quite late at 7:15pm.  There was plenty of tent space left though away from the crowds.

Day 94 Stream @ mile 1348.7 to Wildcat Shelter

Today's miles 21.3.  AT miles 1370

A fun day of boardwalks and rocks today.  We survived last nights heavy rain and hail, the tent was still very wet this morning though, luckily everything inside remained dry.  We were walking for 8am.  It was downhill for a couple of miles and then we reached a lovely, proper boardwalk, not just planks of wood, over a large swamp area to Pochuck Creek Suspension Bridge and beyond.  The boardwalk was just under a mile (0.8 miles) in total. There were lots of red winged blackbirds calling to each other in the bull rushes and we could hear lots of croaking frogs/toads. A little bit further and over more planks of wood style boardwalk and we reached Heaven Hill Farm.  A Farmshop/Deli/Garden Centre where we stopped for coffee and cake break.  Lots of locals were buying their bedding plants.

From the farm shop it was a steep rocky climb up to Wawayanda Mountain.  We passed a firefighter on the way up.  There had been a fire on the mountain a few days earlier started by a careless camper and he was heading up to check that it was totally out.  The fires can stay smouldering in hidden duff in the rocks and relight again if not careful apparently. We called in at Wayayanda mountain Shelter for a quick break about three miles after the summit.  After the Shelter the trail became more challenging with a mixture of woodland paths followed by rocky ridges.   Thirteen miles into the day we crossed the state line leaving New Jersey and entering New York, our ninth state.  New Jersey as Nigel put it was all Rocky Tops and Soggy Bottoms!  It was definitely the wettest state, not because of the rain we've had but because it had so many swamp/wetlands.

The rocky tops became more challenging requiring a bit of scrambling in places but also good fun.  We had a ladder to climb at one point.  We had a heavy rain shower around three o'clock which lasted on and off for a couple of hours.  It made the rocks a bit more difficult in places, they could be quite slippy.  There were great views from the tops again down to Greenwood Lake and an American flag on top of Prospect Rock.  Nigel reconstructed the famous Iwo Jima image.   A couple of miles before we finished there was a hotdog stand we'd been looking forward to but unfortunately it was shut.  

We had two more rock obstacles to tackle before we reached the Shelter, Eastern Pinnacles and Cats Rocks.  Both very pleasant rocky scrambles as the sun came out.  We reached Wildcat Shelter about 6:30, it's a Saturday night and a bank holiday weekend so it was very busy with other campers but we found a tent spot next to Wet Scary Dog.