Last Day -- Completion

Aug 9 Claryville, NY, 563 miles, 52 day journey.

I made my decision to camp on the trail based on the information I had at hand. I was told the trail to Balsam lean to was very steep. I had a new type of pain in my hip. I was not sure how close I was to the lean to when I found the water. I had vowed to be careful at the beginning of the hike and figured I should continue to follow that plan. After I started hiking this morning, I learned that I was an hour away from the shelter so techniquically I could have made it. But I was tired and tired people more easily make mistakes. Overall, I think it was the right decision. I also think that camping like that on my last night spoke to the quality of the hike that I had hoped for when I started. I was careful to the end. Today my hip felt fine. I hiked 15 miles, on route to Claryville. It was quiet a contrast to my 4 miles a day at the beginning of the hike. On the way down, I met an older man with 10-12 early HS girls eating lunch on the trail. He looked unkempt compared to the girls. They all had camping gear. He told me it would take me 2 days to get to Claryville and that there was a monstrous hill to climb to get to town. The hill never appeared and I got to Claryville at 3:30 pm The Blue Hill Lodge does not have a pay phone. It continues to be a Verizon dead zone. I do not know if Gina got my messages yesterday. The owner of the lodge says he will give me one free call. I call Gina's house and left a message on the answering machine. At this point I do not know what is on my voice mail. What a sense of "lack of control" with the one call limit the owner allowed me to make. The need for a calling card is very clear at this point. Since there is a lodge and there is a room available at $90, I decide to wait and see if Gina or Pat would come to get me. If they have not gotten here by 7 or 8 pm I will rent a room. I buy a Gatorade and start working on my journal. Within an hour Pat drives into the parking lot. He had gotten lost; otherwise he would have been there much earlier than my arrival. It worked out really well for me -- trail magic right up to the last hour.