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!
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