New Jersey, Who Knew?

Six years ago, my friend Shellie and I followed through on a promise to hike the entire New Jersey section of the Appalachian Trail (“AT”), thinking that it would be a simple endeavor. We soon learned that New Jersey is longer than wider; the trail measured 72 miles, and when done, in single day hikes of 7-10 miles, would take us four years to complete. A feat that we finally accomplished two summers ago!

Happily, the journey gave us many gifts. First of all, we both fell in love with the AT. We quickly learned to trust and treasure the perfectly placed white blazes and the carefully crafted footholds through ancient rock formations. We learned new terms such as “puncheons” or wooden footbridges through wetlands, “trail angels” who leave prized bake goods at intersections, especially on rainy days, and “flip-floppers”, which are thru-hikers who start at the middle of the AT in Virginia, head north to Maine, and then return to Virginia to complete the trail south to Georgia. We enjoyed meeting fellow hikers who had traveled from afar or lived locally and listening to their stories. Best of all, we enjoyed being on the trail together. We benefitted from our complimentary skills of interpreting the trail through the excellent AT guidebook and topographical maps.

To be honest, we selected New Jersey for our quest for its proximity and diminutive size, rather than for its beauty, so you can imagine our pleasant surprise to find out how wrong we were. The trail winds through some gorgeous terrain, with ridgeline vistas to both the East and West, and valleys with farms, fields, lakes and wetlands. We were impressed with the number of both state and federal parklands that are strung together to create this bucolic passage through one of the most urban of our American states.

Our takeaways are many, but clearly, the best one is that section hiking is rewarding and doable. The AT guidebook and map, along with the help of Google Maps, gave us the tools to plan each day’s hike. Amazingly, we always found a place to drop a car where the trail crosses roads and we certainly were happy to see it waiting for us after a long day’s hike. Our husbands helped us on several occasions when they served as “shuttle bunnies” and even joined us on one section on a beautiful Mother’s Day, and on the last leg, we benefitted from the shuttle service at The Appalachian Hotel at Mountain Creek Ski Resort. We even recruited a new hiker along with one of our National Park Hiking Group to join us on the last section to celebrate crossing into New York.

While we clearly want to enjoy and reflect on accomplishing our goal, we also figured out early on that New Jersey was only the start of our journey. New York is just ahead and hopefully friends and family will accompany us as we continue to explore America’s best-known long-distance footpath, the Appalachian Trail. The hardest part is just getting started!