Believe you can and you are halfway there.
~Teddy Roosevelt
August 29, 2022
AT miles: 12.0
Ascent: 2017’
Descent: 1726’
Weather: hot, hazy, and humid (mid 80’s)
Sightings: a fawn and lots of random birds
High points: walking the Pochuk Boardwalk and eating a cider doughnut ice cream sandwich
The woods can be surprisingly noisy at night! Traffic noise continued all night. In addition, I heard fireworks booming at 9 PM. Random other noises included farm dogs barking, coyotes howling, trains tooting, acorns dropping, a rooster crowing, and the incessant thrum of the cicadas, katydids, crickets, peepers, and whatever other animals chirp away the night. But I did get a few hours of sleep, for which I am grateful.
Since the sun isn’t rising until 6:30, I woke up when the world was still dark gray and watched as the world became lighter and colors started to appear. What a cool transformation!
I made the silly decision to save my cup of coffee until I had hiked to a viewpoint 0.7 miles further along the trail near the top of Pochuk Mtn (1147’). What the guidebook didn’t mention was that most of those 0.7 miles were a challenging rocky climb. I might have enjoyed the ascent more with a bit of caffeine in my system! Unfortunately, when I got to the viewpoint, the clouds had made the view almost completely disappear.
Thankfully the day improved after that rocky start. The trail became a gently rolling woodland path.
And then I arrived at what must be one of the more impressive engineering feats on the AT — Pochuk Boardwalk, a 1.5-mile boardwalk through what was once a prehistoric lake and is now gorgeous swampland. The flowers were amazing, and the birds were abundant.
I cruised along over the smooth level surface. The boardwalk even has passing zones!
And when the trail arrived back at solid ground, it spent close to another mile in level woodlands.
And then I marched through a cow pasture with this rather amusing sign. Apparently hikers don’t always do what might seem obvious to most.
These cows produce milk for Heaven Hill Farm, a wonderful farm stand that had iced coffee and other cold drinks and cider doughnut ice cream sandwiches! Yum! After stopping for a cold feast on a hot day, I was ready to move on.
The trail now does a very steep ascent up Heaven Hill (part of Wawayanda Mtn), and since most of this climb is either rock steps or a rock scramble, it has become known as the “stairway to heaven”. (Is it known as the “descent from heaven” for the SOBO’s?) This was a challenging climb. Surprisingly, I bumped into a new mother and her six-week-old baby coming down from the summit. I think I found someone who’s even crazier than I am!
This picture does not do justice to the difficulty of the climb, but it shows lots of rocks!
And about halfway up this formidable scramble, I found this very encouraging rock.
Beyond the summit of Wawayanda Mtn, the trail gently meandered through woods for the rest of the day. Sometimes it even resembled a dirt path!
When I arrived at Warwick Turnpike, I got a shuttle back to Meadow Lark Farm B&B, where my car is. There is nothing as refreshing as a cold shower on a hot day after a long hike! Despite the early hour, I’m heading to bed — I’ve had a long day and I didn’t sleep much last night.
Today is a great day for a long walk in the woods