Zero Day during a Thru Hike

This week Mac and I are closing a chapter on the middle portion of our hike. From West Virginia all the way through New Jersey we spent almost every weekend visiting friends and family.

Our last planned visit was to Mac’s uncles house near Peekskill, NY. We spent two full days relaxing and enjoying the company of Mac’s family and our hiking buddies Hustle and Flow.

Earlier this week we passed by mile marker 1300 and are very close to 1400. That mean that we are almost 2/3 of the way through the trail.

We crossed the Delaware river and found New Jersey to be a very nice section of trail. On our first day in NJ we saw a bear cub, porcupine, bunnies, a flock of wild turkeys and a rattlesnake!

We are preparing to enter New England and rejoin the mountains. Even though we still have about 2 months of hiking ahead of us, it feels like we are entering the final stretch of our journey. Many difficult sections lay ahead of us including the White mountains and the 100 mile wilderness. A common saying for north bound hikers is that once you hit the Whites is “80 percent of the trail is done, but only 20 percent of the effort.”

Even though we are getting closer to the end, it may be safer to say that the real hike is just beginning.