NY Section

[Krag]

Just finished the NY section and noticed a couple obvious problems; the lack of good water is a lot worse than I've seen it elsewhere. I went down to Tiori Circle--page 123 in the Thru-Hikers Companion--and the water was undrinkable, I bought a Sprite in the vending machine. Blazes are weak in a lot of areas, so much so that Neon mentioned in a register recently that he has hiked 1800 miles this year and NY was the worst in blazing, etc. If I were a local resident I would pitch in setting out water and reviewing weakly blazed areas.

[Crash! Bang!]

i just finished the new york section myself. maybe it was because i went thru right after hurricane season, but i didnt have too bad of a time with water. pa was bad, however. and there were a lot of water angels in nj and ny. noyce.

[chris]

While NY was one of my least favorite states, I can't say that the blazing was any more or less worse than the other states, at least during the last summer.

[Crash]

Chris & Crash!Bang! - why were NY & PA bad?
Water in PA is great except for the section from just S of Wind Gap (Rte 33) going N to Delaware Water Gap which has only 1 water source.

[chris]

As you have presumably hiked in the area, I think this boils down to a matter of taste. But, to be brief. PA, except for Lehigh Gap has nothing of scenic quality. There are some nice things, like the area around Duncannon and the pasture walk coming out of Boiling Springs, but on the whole there isn't much to see. The trail insists of pushing over rocky trail when nice, cleared old road bed (perhaps still used by ATV hunters) runs in the same direction and only a few feet away. It is rare (never?) that one is out of ear shot of a road. It was infernally hot and humid when I was there, and I got rained on a bunch. The trail was overgrown in places with poison ivy, and I picked up my second case of the summer north of Duncannon. One of my tarp poles had snapped and so I was relegated to the shelters, which really sucked at times. Water at shelters seemed always to be quite some distance away, even more so than usual. I did find (and mark) Metallica spring, which was really tasty, though. NY had worse problems, but at least was short. As if it had an inferiority (or small man) complex with its more northerly neighbors, the AT in NY seemed determined to route itself up every little piddly pile of rocks, whether or not there was anything to see. And, of course, do it as quickly as possible. This really isn't challenging, it is just annoying. The climbs are not long enough to really wear you out, nor are they vertical or exposed enough to be fun. There were times (near Greymoor, for example), where the trail is running through a nice valley with pleasant walking. Then, it spikes steeply up to a ridge without views. Then comes back down to the same valley. Then goes back up to the ridge again. It was as if the NY trail designers wanted to prove to everyone that they had challenging trail in NY and so set out to deliberately build an annoyance. Then, there is the spectacle of Bear Mountain and the Zoo. I can't think of any more negative experience I've had on any trail or on any trip than walking through both the zoo and the Zoo. The best part of NY was when I left it, entered CT, and then put Wingfoot at the bottom of my pack and took an alternate route into Kent and then Salisbury.

[Footslogger]

What I remember mumbling to myself over and over again as I covered NY on my thru last year was how much of the trail was on hard rock surface. Everything being relative, I thought back to the other states I had covered and thought that the NY experience could be improved if the trail was moved over to more earthen areas adjacent to the rock. Some of that rock was unavoidable but then again I think it was just "easier" to route it over rock than build/maintain trail.

I've built and maintained my share of trails and know how hard it is ...but that's what I remember about NY. It was also not one of my favorite states.

'Slogger
AT 2003

[A-Train]

As far as bad blazing goes...you are probably refering to the short but confusing section once entering Harriman Park just south of the junction of the Long Path. I went hiking here a couple times in July and was quite suprised to see how poor the marks were, they probably just need touching up. Also confusing is the "rockclimb" directly after the lemon squeezer. There are white blazes going over it. After a couple hikes thru here I realized there are white blazes aroudn it too. I've done both, wonder which way is the "official route".

I don't know, as I say, I enjoyed NY a lot, despite incessant rain. I think its all about expectations. I had hiked most of the state before so I knew what to expect. Many other thru-hikers get frustrated and defeated becasue they expected it to be a coast, just like PA and Jerzee