Day 97 Bear Mountain Bridge to stealth camp mile 1411

Today's miles 11.3.  AT miles 1411

Today was like walking in a sauna, it was hot and humid from first thing, definitely the hottest muggiest day so far with temperatures in the mid 80'sF/28-30°C. The heat combined with the humidity made walking hard work.  We were ready and waiting just before 9am for our booked taxi to arrive, it didn't.  I phoned the taxi firm to remind them, apparently a taxi  would be with us in ten minutes - nope.  The hotel reception guy came and asked us who we were waiting for and said the hotel owner would give us a lift back to the trail if no taxi turned up, he said the taxi's were unreliable.  We got a ride with the hotel owner back to the trail which was very kind of him.  Hopefully out of generosity and not to remove two stray hikers from his hotel front!

Back on the trail for 9:45 we immediately walked over Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson river and rejoined the forest trail on the other side.  We walked up and over a couple of small hills for five and  half miles before reaching the Appalachian Market shop/deli/gas station where we had planned a food resupply, there was nothing in Fort Montgomery.  Nigel had a can of beer left over from last night so stopped on the way at midday to drink it before it got too warm, I'm not sure why, must have been the heat, but he stripped down to his underpants to drink it!   There was limited choice at the deli but we managed to get food for the next three days.  We did get some nice food for lunch though, being a deli they sold a good range of home cooked food, not just fast food.  Nigel had a chicken and rice dish and I had vegetable stuffed pork with red skin mashed potatoes followed by fruit salad, delicious, it was lovely to have something other than fast food or food served with fries.

After lunch we continued on the trail, we were hoping to get a further 14 miles, we only managed just under six.  The trail paths were much better today, far less rocky, but the heat and humidity was almost unbearable, it zapped our energy and really slowed us (me) down.  We were both feeling it though, I don't know if it was the effect of the heat or the food we'd eaten but within half an hour of each other we both had to have swift diarrhoea stops. We continued slowly after refilling with some fresh cold drinking water from a stream.  I was ready to stop though for the day so on passing another brook we collected more camp water and walked until we could find somewhere flat enough to stealth camp. We found somewhere just after five o'clock.

The bugs and mosquitoes were quite bad today, they have been the last couple of days since it warmed up.  We also have the attack of the baby caterpillars too, they fall from the trees I think and get everywhere.  It stayed very warm and humid into the evening, we sat in our tent protected from the bugs in just our underwear.  The forecast is to cool down dramatically tomorrow which is fine by us.  It was too warm to sleep in our sleeping bags or even just sleeping bag liners, it did however cool down enough to need sleeping bag cover around 2am.