Delaware Water Gap, PA to Bear Mountain, NY

Day 3, Tuesday, May 25

Brink Road Shelter to Rutherford Shelter, 15.3 miles

I hear Robin and her dad stirring around 6:30 AM. I get up at 7 AM and join them while eating breakfast. Breakfast for me is a pack of cheese crackers. I’m not very hungry this morning.

They ask me if I dropped a length of rope back up the trail. Turns out to be the rope I had purchased to hang the mosquito netting with. I must have dropped it Sunday afternoon just after I met them and stopped for a break. Robin hands it back to me. My first “trail magic” of this trip. Turns out they had stayed at the Mohican Outdoor Center Sunday night as well, but they had tented above the office, so I hadn’t seen them there.

I head out by 7:45 AM and walk back up the hill to the trail. The temperature is at least ten degree cooler this morning. The front that pushed through last night has brought cooler, drier air. The hiking is delightful. There is a nice cool breeze and just a few clouds in the sky. I pass one SB, “Just Doubt” as I’m descending into Culver Gap. I stop and talk for a few minutes. I reach the gap at 9:30 AM and the find the bakery there is closed. I don’t think it opens until Memorial Day anyway, so I walk down to the gas station a couple of hundred yards away for a Pepsi.

From the road it’s an easy hour hike to the Culver Fire Tower. I take a long break at the tower picnic table to catch up on my journal, admire the view, and enjoy the sunny day with its cool breeze.

A half-hour later I reach the Gren Anderson Shelter trail. I decide to drop my pack and go take a look. Nothing fancy but it seems like a nice shelter.

The rest of the morning is a rocky ridge walk to Sunrise Mountain. I pass four or five groups out day hiking or backpacking. There are at least twenty kids from St. Benedicts Prep School in Newark eating lunch under the day shelter on top of Sunrise Mountain. I stop for a quick rest and have some crackers and water.

Near the parking lot I spy two large water jugs. The bus driver tells me to help myself, so I fill one of my quart bottles with water for the afternoon hike.

By 2:15 PM I reach the Mashipicong Shelter. It appears to be a great shelter and location, but there is no water close by. While I’m taking a break there, “Bonedancer” from near Raleigh and an Appalachian State grad hikes in. We talk for ten or fifteen minutes, all-the-time pulling ticks off ourselves. After a short rest I grab my pack to leave. I stop to check out the bear box across from the shelter, and then I promptly turn the wrong way and hike out this nice grassy road thinking it’s the AT. Wrong.

“Bonedancer” follows me a minute later, but he realizes it’s the wrong way when he doesn’t see any white blazes. I’ve got my head down ahead of him so I haven’t noticed the lack of white blazes until I reach the highway a quarter of a mile away. When I don’t see blazes at the crossing, I figure I’ve missed a turn, so I start back. After a few hundred yards back up the trail, I hear “Bonedancer” shouting for me. We both laugh and walk back to the shelter and take the real trail down the hill behind the shelter. After crossing the highway a little further down the hill from where I just was, “Bonedancer” leaves me behind up the next hill. Legs half your age will do that.

I’m toying with the idea of pressing on to the High Point Shelter instead of stopping at the Rutherford Shelter as I had originally planned. The Rutherford Shelter is four-tenths downhill. It’s too far off the trail for me and downhill to boot. But by the time I reach the shelter trail at 4 PM I know that I don’t have another 4.3 miles in my legs today. Besides I have a mail drop at the High Point State Park Headquarters and I can’t get there today before it closes anyway. Since the High Point Shelter is 1.7 miles past the headquarters building I’d have to backtrack in the morning to pick up my mail drop. Doesn’t make sense to do that.

So four-tenths down the hill to Rutherford Shelter it is. It turns out to be a great shelter site. The spring could use a little work, so I dig out a spot and I’ll have water in no time. I cook supper with my remaining water and wait for the spring to clear. After Ramen noodles and crackers I get enough water to clean up and wash my shirt and underwear. Might as well smell fresh.

By 6 PM the sun is hiding behind some trees and high clouds. There is a nice breeze blowing in the trees overhead. If something could be done about the mosquitoes! And I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ticks either. I’ve pulled 12-15 of them off of me today. Five in one sitting.

As dusk approaches I watch two deer make their way down the hill above the shelter toward the spring. They know I’m at the shelter but it doesn’t stop them from getting water. I’m in bed by 7:45 PM. Nice breeze. With my new-found rope I even hang my mosquito netting tonight.