Day 16 – 18 miles - Gren Anderson Shelter

Big one, 18 miler today, sunny, humid but lots of breezes so that helped out.  Out by 7:10am and at the first shelter, which was 11 miles out, by 12:40 so that was really pushing it.  What a dump it was.  It was right next to a green mosquito-filled pool of water, and they were all over the place.  I quickly got my water, ate a quick snack and got out of there as quick as I could.  The next camp looked a lot better even though I was going to have to put additional miles on the boots. 

Shelter where I stopped for a break

Just a little information about my camp mate last night.  His name is Orange Bear.  I had met him back at the Gap.  We caught up with each other toward the end of the day looking for a campsite.  He is a self-employed carpenter from Belgium on a six week tour of the AT and jumping around sections.  He started at Waynesboro, Virginia and at New York he plans to jump up to Vermont so he can see as much as he can during his six weeks off.  He’s a rather brave soul in that he has minimal English skills.  He has done this on other vacation hikes in the US before, he said.  He went to Aspen, CO the first time and he said he went with all the wrong gear, too heavy.  He learned his lessons when he was doing that.

Today was just a tunnel of green with occasional walks on exposed ridge lines.  Not a very exciting day, I saw various lakes down in the valleys but just endless, endless trees.  Surprising for New Jersey, huh! 

It's great to be back on the trail!

The shelter, fairly nice, a great water source.  You wouldn’t believe some of the water sources along here, you just kind of close your eyes and drink it.  This was nice and clean.  The shelter is kind of full tonight, there are about 15-16 hikers here.  They must have some real bear problems in the area because they have some are signs up and at this shelter, they have a metal bear box to put your food in for the night instead of hanging it from the trees or the foolish ones who put their food in their tents.

That’s it, I’m kind of tired after an 18 mile hike today so once again, I’m heading off to bed early.  Again an early rise and hopefully we won’t do as many miles tomorrow.