Day 8 - Saturday, January 23, 2021

The morning temperature was 21° and the skies were overcast. Forecast for today is cold with the high only expected to reach mid 20’s; wind chill will make it feel in the single digits. 

Our commute to where we are on the trail from Jim’s house is over an hour now; so after we complete  hiking this weekend and I get back from Florida we will start staying out on the trail and road all the time. We will be finishing NY and enter NJ Sunday.  


I have decided on a trail name, “Splinter”, the adopted father, mentor and Master of the Ninja Turtles. Actually, my oldest daughter Theresa came up with it as she thought it would compliment my Martial Arts background and it also associates with Jim’s trail name. Anyway, I thought I will get a few more trail miles in and complete NY before I officially begin using it.  I also liked it better than TP’s suggestion that our trail names should be "Beavis and Butt-Head" 🙄. 


We resumed  hiking from Orange Turnpike (1384.9 NoBo) to NY 17A Bellvale-Greenwood Lake (1474.7 NoBo) which will equal 10.2 miles. 


We started hiking at 9:43 am and yes the winds are bitter cold as they predicted. I’m probably not going to be taking too many pictures cause it’s too darn cold to take my hands out of my gloves LOL.



The ruggedness of the AT can be very humbling. These pictures may put things a little more into perspective. 





The rock climbing has been the most challenging to date. Again, thank God the more difficult ones were inclines and not declines. Constantly in search of handholds and footholds methodically finding your way up the nearly vertical rock faces. I didn’t see any mention of this in the AT Thru-Hiker Handbook.  🙁


Four out five people who start the AT do not complete it. I refer to them as the “80 percenters”. With the short time I have on the trail I can certainly see why. Many hikers leave due to injuries through no fault of their own. One misplaced step and your journey is over. Others leave due to the mental stress of either bring isolated hiking alone or being overwhelmed with what seems like never ending physical obstacles . I am totally prepared mentally to complete this adventure due to my nearly 34 years of martial arts training in which I received from my Instructor, Grandmaster Clifford C. Crandall Jr. founder of American Martial Arts Institute; getting this beat up, broken 66 year old body moving every day is my challenge...




At 12:49 pm,  5.8 miles into our hike, we stopped and took our lunch; decided to make it a walking lunch today because of the wind we didn’t really want to stop for too long and cool down. 


We finished hiking at 3:04 PM.  The temperature was 26° and the skies were clear. Made such a difference when the sun was out. 


Till next time... Happy Hiking 🥾 


😋

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