No Subject

About 2 miles into the hike there is a stream crossing.  The 
banks of the stream are kind of steep, but the crossing 
itself is really nothing.  The oldest person in the group (in 
his early 70?s) fell hard making the crossing.  He said that 
he was OK.  We got him out of the stream and I administered a 
bit of first aid.  He said he could not lift his arm over his 
shoulder but other wise he was OK.  Later on he admitted that 
he was in some pain and we really should have bailed out, but 
the stubborn old goat wanted to hike this section.

Shortly before crossing Rte 519 we started to head 
southeast.  This is unsettling for those of you expecting to 
travel north all the way.  Also the trail crosses over the 
New York, New Jersey State Line several times and may 
actually be the state line in sections.  The trail heads to 
the southeast until it finally swings into New York around 
Wawayanda State Park.

The trail now mostly goes through old farm fields and pasture 
lands surrounded by old stone fences.  The trees are not very 
old, mostly none older than 20 years.  Some of the fields are 
still cultivated.  After crossing Courtwright Road we took 
advantage of an old stone wall and had lunch.  My lunch 
consisted of a peanut butter and honey sandwich, a plum and 
ice tea (The elixir of 	the gods).  The rest of the hiking 
went pretty fast though we meet a very dangerous animal just 
before crossing Ferguson Road.  A herd of cows stood in our 
path, though they ignored us and we had no problems getting 
around them.  It was a bigger challenge walking around the 
cow paddies.

In addition to going through old fields there were a number 
of pretty boggy sections.  At 7.2 miles there is a long 
stretch of puncheon across Vernie swamp.  This is a pretty 
area in the spring with the lush verdant growth, but in the 
fall it is all dying back and to put it bluntly pretty 
depressing.  The trail has had some minor relocations and I 
think that this was done to reduce the stress on the trail.  
I did not understand one relocation that took the trail 
through a fairly large patch of Lycopodium.    The last mile 
went very fast and we had hiked 10 miles in 5 hours (4 hours 
of hiking)

I was tired at the end of the hike and my feet were hurting a 
bit.  There were lots of rocks and the fast last mile really 
did them in (thought they are fine today).  I had last some 
weight recently (15 lbs) and that really helped my 
endurance.  Unfortunately because of all of the wet weather I 
have not gone walking everyday, so the steep climbs still 
winded me.  I did not have to stop on any of the climbs 
(except for the last one right after quarry Road), and I 
recovered quickly after each climb.  Still I have to get out 
and climb more hills.  Did I tell you about my feet?

Grey Owl