New York

The trail passes through New York for about 90 miles.  This took about 5 days for me and it was a bit funny to me how crowded the trail seemed to be.  There are many different reasons for this: it was through a weekend, I have began to hit 'the bubble' going northbound, also I am hitting the beginning of the southbounders.  The trail also passes through quite a few towns.  People told me that you could go get a deli sandwich every day from the trail in New York if you wanted... I managed to resist this urge.  

Other than the crowds, the trail in New York was kind of cool, lots of steep, rocky, quick ups and downs.  There were some awesome lake views.  At one point it went through a little zoo where the bears den marked the lowest point on the trail!  Just after the zoo, it crossed over the Hudson River.  

Although the amount of people was overwhelming at times it did provide some amazing trail magic!  At many of the road crossings in the first half of the state people had put out jugs of clean water, which was great because many of the water sources were absolutely disgusting!  Also one man put out an ice chest full of food, including fresh New York bagels!!  The best however was near bear mountain.., I came up on 2 young men singing and playing a guitar at around 8pm , I sat down, listened for a minute, clapped and then chatted for a bit, telling them I planned to just set up camp at a relatively flat spot on the way down the mountain.  One of them told me I could just stay at his place... This was a great offer, so I accepted and got even more than that!  This guy took me and his friend out to dinner, let me sleep on his couch, use his shower, then bought me breakfast in the way back to the trail!  The kindness of the trail community just continues to amaze me!!