7/06/01
5:50 a.m. The alarm clock sounded off loudly and didn't stop until I stumbled out of the comfortable bed in the Fairview Street home in Huntington, Long Island. Beatle was already downstairs finishing cleanup of the house and putting the finishing touches on getting his backpack ready to go. I work up Phantom and Surefoot and we all scrambled to get ready for the train commute back to the trail. Beatle had called for a taxi which arrived at 6:30 a.m. to take us to Huntington Station. Minutes later we were on the train heading to Manhattan along with the Friday morning commuters. I was paying particular attention to the attire of the work force and am happy to report that the vast majority of the men were not wearing suits or even ties. We were on an express train and shortly arrived at Penn Station. Two more train rides brought us back to Harriman Station at 10:30 a.m. We hiked the two miles to the Arden post office together where Surefoot and I picked up our food mail drop. By noon the four of us were hiking on the AT north bound again.
Together we went through the "Lemon Squeezer", a narrow crevice which is the proverbial "between a rock and a hard place". Then we stopped at the Fingerboard shelter for lunch and to check the shelter register to see who had passed us during our day off. All four of us were tired from the short amount of sleep and we weren't setting any speed records as we continued hiking. Then there was a midafternoon stop at Tiorati Lake for some ice cream and a soda. Phantom and I were the first to leave the lake behind (too cold temps to swim) and we quickened the pace to the William Brien shelter. There we found Beatle relaxing (he took a short blue blaze side trail to cut off two miles). It was obvious he was through hiking for the day, but Phantom needed to do more miles to leave a reasonable number of miles for Saturday morning to the Bear Mtn. post office. Despite an advancing summer cold and general tiredness, I went with Phantom for the additional 3 mile hike. It was a good decision to go farther because we found a gorgeous tent campsite atop West Mtn. with expansive views. From there we could see the Manhattan skyline on the distant horizon as well as multiple layers of mountains and valleys in three directions. We had the mountain to ourselves and ate dinner together from the rock vista while the sun set to the west. Despite fatigue I checked out the night skyline lights of NYC, then relaxed in my bug free tent with the radio until sleep took over. It was great to be back on the trail. Today's hike was very, very pretty, especially through Harriman State Park. Nevertheless, New York has had lots of ups and downs and is not an easy trail at all. Here are today's stats; low 62, high 78. Sunny. Today's mileage: 12.9; cumulative 1378.1.
