Slackpacking

day 63

hiked today: 17.3
hiked total: 1352.4
to katahdin: 825.9

What a day, what a day. We woke up to a big delicious breakfast here at Dick's place. We were offered the chance to 'slackpack' out of here, and Andy and I jumped at the idea. Basically, Butch drove us up 17.3 miles and we would be southbounders for a day and head back to Unionville. We get to spend the night here, get some real food, and not camp in the rain (there was no shelter in our area tonight.) Thats a really good part of it, however, the best part of it is, we didn't need our packs! Besides some water and a bar or two, we left everything behind. Needless to say we were excited, and that means we flew. We actually ran a few of the miles! It was wonderful. It wasn't too sunny out, but it wasn't cold, so the weather was perfect. We went through some really cool parts of Jersey (never thought I would say that) and there was a boardwalk that was .6 miles long with a huge suspension bridge. Jersey is really wet/swampy, so there are lots of boardwalks, but nothing like this. We went through some wildlife preserve areas, saw some cool birds, a baby turtle, and a bunch of gofers.

We were flying the whole way, even when we weren't running. We got dropped off at 8:15 and finished the 17.3 miles by 12:45 and then got to the house by 12:55. We got back here, took showers (taking a shower after a hike, what a novel idea! I wish we had thought of it earlier) and got some food down at the deli. I'm happy to be back in NY and Andy and I will be heading home tomorrow for a few days. We will enjoy the evening, watch some tv, eat some good food, and not sleep in the rain.

Also Jordan said he's going to try to come up to NH in the whites with us which would be awesome! so we have a lot to look forward to in the up comming month.