Slackpacking

6-28-09 day 26
start: The Outhouse in Unionville, NY
end: Warwick Turnpike, NJ
daily mileage: 17.3
total mileage: 339.5

Today, we slackpacked for the first time. It turns out that Dick, Bill, and Butch's kindness was far greater than expected... he likes to give people a chance to stay at his house twice in a row, and so he drives people up 17 miles to Warwick Turnpike and lets them hike back to his house for a second night there! From there, he drives you back to the turnpike the next morning to hike north! So, we let him drive us up to Warwick Turnpike, hiked back to the Outhouse, and had another great night in the lap of luxury!

We didn't take our full packs (since we were heading south, and ending up back where we started). We had an interesting hangup right at the beginning, though... a great younger guy, also named Bill, was slackpacking with us. We enjoyed a bit of chow for breakfast with him just as we started, and set off... only to somehow, on a linear trail, to get totally turned around. It wasn't until we got all the way back to the turnpike that we realized... we had somehow hiked 2 miles south (as we should have been today) and literally turned around without realizing it, only to hike 2 miles back north! I guess our internal compasses couldn't stand the idea of going southbound for a day! Our little adventure added 4 miles to the day, but it was relatively flat so it was fine.

We hiked on a neat boardwalk for a few miles today, and saw lots of weekend hikers, which was a lot of fun. Beautiful weather, for a change!