Day 52/May 23

Miles hiked: 18:09 in 8:21

Start: Millbrook Road, Blairsville, NJ

Finish: Gren Anderson Shelter, NJ

Elevation gain: 2,421'

A beautiful beaver pond.

One of three rattlesnakes that we would encounter during the day--more than I had seen in my lifetime. We had to detour around this one; he was not going to move for us.

The rattlesnakes weren't the only things crowding the trail--we met the freshman class from St. Benedict's Preparatory School--a college prep Catholic school located in Newark, New Jersey. They were doing a SOBO hike of roughly 50 miles on the AT. Here's a blurb from Wikipedia:

Freshmen don't have a choice. At the end of the Freshmen Year, Freshmen spend a week together. They sleep in tents. Freshman team members take turns cooking for one another, preparing food they have carried on their backs. The Backpacking Project is a five-day trek over 50 miles (80 km) of the Appalachian Trail in the mountains of western New Jersey. Freshmen form themselves into 16 teams of eight members each and elect a leader. Upon selecting a leader they also make decisions for the rest of available positions, which are the camping specialists(2), the cooks (2), the first aid person (1), the nature specialist (1), the navigator (1) and the Captain. Four such teams make a "company" that is led by specially trained older students, first-aiders, and adults. Three weeks of intense training precede the week on the trail. Bringing back old history the transfer students no longer have choice as they to have to walk the trail.

I will say that I was impressed with the kids, they were all incredibly polite and most of them seemed to be enjoying the hike, save for a couple of the overweight kids walking uphill. :-)

Route from my Suunto.