This last weekend, Memorial Day weekend, I finished up the New York Section of the Appalachian Trail(AT)  which I started in 2024. As always with events like these, things did not go as planned. I started watching the weather about two weeks out and watched a pattern of nice weather slowly shift from bad to terrible. Ultimately, the Monday before the event was to commence, I made the decision to shorten the route about 8 miles and compress my three twelve mile days into two days, sixteen miles and seventeen miles. It was not ideal, but I had already invested time and money into the event and wanted to follow through.

I arrived in Warwick, NY on 5/21 and stayed at a tired but amenable hotel named the Warwick Inn. It was an affair special complete with the screenless window in the bathroom so you could sneak out if your lovers boyfriend or husband caught you two in the room. It kinda reminded me of the hotel scene in the movie “A Walk in the Woods” starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Dinner was an Irish Stew and Guinness at Yesterday’s Irish Pub in Warwick New York. I would come back to the hotel and watch my daughter perform in her school musical, “Godspell”. Lights out at 2030 and I was ready for my adventure.

I tried sleeping in till 0600 when my alarm was to go off, but was up by 0430 and out of bed by 0530. I went off to have some breakfast at the bagel shop in town and went off to do my morning devotions, meeting my ride at 0900. Arriving at Bear Mountain Bridge, I got to cross the Hudson and was soon on my way. The Bear Mountain Zoo was closed, but the walk around the lake made up for it. I more or less cruised the day with significant climbs, rock scrambles and breathtaking views. I arrived at Fingerboard Shelter around 1800. I spent the night hanging out with others sharing the shelter with me.

Mystery and Wonder

Just before the peak of Bear Mountain, you are treated to a cool view of the New York City skyline, I  will come across this view again later in the day. As I looked out at the skyline, I could not help but wonder if there was some poor soul stuck in one of those buildings hating their life, wondering as they looked out on the mountains if there was anything really to live for. Or even wondering what was in those mountains. After I got back to my car and was driving home, I was thinking of this and my mind wandered to the practices of wonder and mystery.

Life is a simple process of becoming and if we learn to let go, we learn that we were not really holding onto anything in first place. As we move through this process called life, when we open ourselves up to mystery and wonder – starting asking why, how and what if, we gain a deeper appreciation for the movement of time before us. We must let everyday be a new day, a mystery if you will.  It does not matter if you have been at the same job for a long time, I have been in my current job almost 10 years. I try and find surprises in my job every day, I try and cherish every laugh, every tear, every surprise, and every setback with my clients.

Obstacles are places to grow, and they help us in our human becoming. In a previous post  on wonder, I offer Thich Nhat Hahn’s morning meditation thought: “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”  Every moment is an opportunity to practice.

Pentecost Cookies

A new experience happened when I arrived at the shelter on Friday night. There, I met a man and his daughter who was quite young, she had hiked four miles to the shelter for an overnight with her dad. As I would learn the next day, this was not an easy four miles. Her dad was an Episcopal priest and I would be able to talk shop about the upcoming Pentecost celebration on Sunday. I had preached on this two weeks ago and he was preaching on it Sunday. We were discussing how Pentecost needs to be more commercialized and be a bigger holiday than it is. Maybe Holy Spirit dove cookies or something. I am pretty sure the other couple in our shelter were Jewish and I found this to be humorous, two Protestant ministers and members of the Jewish faith share a shelter on the Appalachian Trail, share scotch and have a great evening of fellowship. This will probably go down as one of my favorite experiences thus far. The man’s daughter was a delight to be around, a kid unencumbered by social media who still knew how to play independently, make friends and talk to others.

Lessons Learned

The rain was forecasted to start around 0700 on Saturday morning. I was hell bent to get to the shelter on Friday so that I would not have to deal with taking down a wet tent, eating a soggy breakfast and generally dealing with rain. The weather always lies and it was starting to spit by 0600 as I was making breakfast and taking down camp. I would eat half of my breakfast bar, drink my coffee, have my morning constitution and on my way by 0630, I had what my map said was fifteen miles ahead of me, turns out it was seventeen and change. I had a lot of obstacles today, terrain, rain and limited water supply which meant for a while a 4 liter water carry. The first couple of hours were not so bad, but by lunchtime, it was raining and I did not want to stop for lunch so I just ate snacks all day. I still was able to down two bottles of water in the morning, having to stop twice at two slow moving and scummy streams that required scooping of water at one. The water surprisingly came out clean tasting despite the color.

On Saturday, the the point less ups and downs (PUDs) were relentless and at times I was moving only 1.7 miles an hour, there was no cruise on Saturday. I was fortunate on several occasions to gather water from water caches left by trail angels and was grateful for this. Eventually after a long day, I finally arrived at my car and headed out to my cousins house where I stayed the night before driving home on Sunday.

New York was tough, the rocks there are worse than Pennsylvania’s Rocksylvania. I am scheduled to backpack New Jersey with my wife in July and given her lack of experience and lingering plantar fasciitis pain, I made the decision to adjust that hike to only three days. She was not thrilled, but as I have learned, the trail will always be there. Also learned is know when to back off. Better to say you could have done more than to get there and say you cannot go on.