| Mile | 1309.8 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 11.7 |
| Day | 102 |
Not even 12 miles, but I’m trying to follow the schedule somewhat. It was disgustingly hot and humid and buggy today. The rocks here are a bit more manageable, but still painful enough that my joy of leaving PA is mostly sapped. There’s water here at least.
I thought a lot about quitting today. Not quitting on this day in particular but just about how/when/why I would quit in the near future. The heat is going to get worse. NWS has predicted a hotter than average summer for pretty much all of the north east (next time I’m in town I’ll see if a local will lend me their Farmer’s Almanac to confirm). Altitude might help a little but it also means more strenuous days that are still likely to be in the 80s-90s. It is going to very quickly get to the point where I slog thru 10-13 hours of hiking in blistering heat, setup camp for a night of 80 degree misery, get 4 hours of sweat filled sleep, and repeat for weeks (this is already happening 1-2 days a week it feels like). My hope is that point doesn’t happen until after NY/CT, as those are states I still think I can knock out and would be cool to walk thru. If I keep pushing beyond that tho, I know I’m going to end up stuck climbing 6k feet a day in the whites while it is 90+ degrees out. Closing things out close to NY also gives me a lot of options as far as how to bail. Right now I’m well within 2 hours of bus/train rides to JFK. The whites would be more painful to escape from. I’m not committed to anything yet, but in my head what happens is: close out NY, maybe CT, it starts to creep into the 90s, I call it, bum around the north east for a week or two while I figure out what I really want to do, and go from there.
Still no word from Notyet. Tomorrow is going to be cooler so I might try to push a 20ish if he isn’t trying to catch me. Today was supposed to stop at the Mohican Outdoor Center but I’m tired of sleeping indoors honestly and I found a real sick campsite not too far from it that has a pretty cool view.
Also passed by NJ’s famous “large pile of rocks” today.
