First off, let me say, the days preceding this one, that are missing, rocks, late day hours long thunderstorms, and rocks with not views, that’s what you have been missing. Seriously though, there were some good days and those I’ll try to go back and hit, but later. Now as we are just about to cross 1,400 miles and less than 800 miles left, the climbs, the views and the excitement is building back up.

Wildcat shelter (1087 feet) mile 1376.8 to a super stealth site near mile 1392.5 for a 15.7 mile day.

We left camp a little late today, because one, I slept till 7:30, two, I got stung by some form of flying insect and that caused my hand to swell started hurting. It slowed things down a bit because it was inside my tent, and as I was packing my tent into its stuff sack the thing stung me on the hand. Therefore, I had to set my tent back up to try to get it out.

After the flying insect incident, we walked 1.8 miles to Fitzgerald Falls and when we arrived at Fitzgerald Falls it was actually dry, there is not a drop of water flowing over it.

We continued on past the dry falls and found water just about 200 feet from the top of the falls, “upstream”. After filtering and refilling our water bottles we started up hill. Today was a day filled with climbs, and descents. In 16 miles, we ascended 3,796 feet and descended 3,643 feet. It’s these almost even days that are difficultp, heck they are all difficult. Haha

These weren’t just any climbs today though, most of them were rock scrambles, and the first one up, was this bad boy here! I know it sound crazy, but, it was a lot easier than I expected.

We continued on and just about when it was time to stop and eat, we came to a road crossing. At the road crossing was 7, 1 gallon jugs full of water!! A water cache is always a welcome sight when in the back country with dry streams all around you. So, we decided to stop there and have a sit and eat our lunch, and today, I decided to make some lunch time coffee. Cafe Bustelo, is my go to espresso coffee out here.

After lunch we walked on for a few miles, of course, up and down hills, and we came to Little Dam Lake.

A few miles past the lake we came to mile 1386, and The Sapphire Trail, which leads about 2 miles north to Harriman Station, where you can catch a train or bus into New York City.

Next up for the day was the lemon squeezer! A sort of crevasse through broken boulders that may require removing your pack and a little bit of hand over hand climbing.

Lemon squeezer is nothing compared to the rock face that was waiting on the other side!! I will attach a photo but it does not do any justice and showing how difficult this was!!

The man you see standing at the top is, Magic Mike, who is a Sobo Thru Hiker who started June 1 at Katahdin!

Look at it from the top as I watch magic mike go down.

See Kelly down there, yeah, that’s how high it was!!! Nonetheless, we survived!!

We continued from there and finished off our 16 mile day at Lake Tiorati, where we barely escaped the rain before it started to fall!

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