Are you sure you want to do this?
Of course.
But you’ve been sick. You should rest.
I’ve rested, and I’m still sick. I’m well enough to go work.
You have to go work.
I have to go backpacking.
Be careful.
I will.

Another trip. I’m not even sure as I plan this one that it is even for fun anymore. I’m on a mission. I’ve walked 170 some odd miles of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. I have just over 50 miles to go to reach New Jersey. Pennsylvania has been a mess of ankle twisting boulders and toe bashing rocks. I don’t know that I believe in a bad backpacking trip, but I’ve had it with Pennsylvania. I just want to make to New Jersey. New State. New Trail.

This trip will have us walking about 20 miles. My companion on this trip is the hiker we call the Uber-Bot. She’s unstoppable. She walks for hours with out need a rest or a drink or anything. She never seems to get tired or hungry or frustrated. She is just like a robot.

Friday night we hope to go four miles to the New Tripoli Camping Area. Construction on the interstate delayed our arrival at the trail head. By the time we walked away from the truck and in to the woods it was after seven. And quite dark.

Night hiking is, as you can imagine, quite different than hiking in the day. As we started out the moon was low in the sky and a mist hung in the air. The haziness gave you the impression that is you’d just squint maybe you’d be able see better. We used lightweight head lamps to light the way. The head lamps were good for lighting the trail and exposing rocks and roots that hid waiting to trip the unsuspecting hiker. At the same time, they mad the surrounding woods even darker. The effect was very much like walking in a tunnel.

I was tired. It had been a long day at work, hell a long week. The drive was long and it was late. We hadn’t walked far when we came to a tent site off the trail. I wanted to just stop there and make camp. The Uber-Bot pointed out that the trail was in good condition and we should take advantage of it. And she was right. Every step that we did not take that night, would have to be walked the next day.

So we walked, in the dark and the mist. The trail stayed well defined and easy to walk on, and I let her talk me out of a few more tent sites. To our surprise we passed a few campers who set up camp alongside the trail. As we walked I mentally tallied the distance. I knew we had to be close. But close is a relative term. A half mile is a long way to walk we you are exhausted.

I smelled the smoke of a campfire first. Then heard voices. Finally we could see them. A dozen or so bodies milling around half as many tents. Boy Scouts. As we neared them, one of the adults came over to see what we were about.

“Hi there.”
“How’s it going? Is this New Tripoli Camp Area?”
“We’re not sure. There is a Blue Blaze just beyond that may go down to the camping area. But we didn’t go down, this was nice and level so we just made camp here.”

We thanked then and went on our away. As promised we found the blue blazed trail just a few hundred yards down the trail. My friend may be untiring, but she doesn’t not care for climbs. She looked in the darkness at the descent to the campground and said, “It’s nice and level where those scouts are.”
“the last the ting those scouts need is a women around.”
“I’ll be good.”
“Let’s go see what is down there.”

We headed down after a quick check of the map (just to be sure that the trailed did not go all the way to the bottom of the mountain.) The blue blaze led to a level clearing next to a spring. Even in the darkness, it was very beautiful.

We went to work setting up our tents. Once our tents were struck. I set up my camp stove and heated some water for coffee. I was tired, but my throat was a bit sore and something hot to drink sounded good. We relaxed for a while and enjoyed the quite of the woods. I especially enjoyed it, because I knew that had we set up camp near those scouts we would not have had this kind of tranquility.

With our beverage consumed and the temperature dropping we retired to our respective tents. And reviewed the map for a few moments and then turned out my head lamp and fell asleep almost instantly.