High Point State Park, 7/1-7/4/2005

Nineteen campers, including three children, pitched their tents at group site B of High Point State Park.

Twelve people arrived on Friday, but I came on Saturday morning. It had rained in NY City on Friday night, but the campsite remained dry. The youngest camper was two-and-a-half year old Jeremy. The weather was perfect: cool enough for hiking, warm enough for swimming, no rain and very few mosquitoes.

People split up into several groups and went hiking on Saturday. Janice gave David and I a ride to Lake Marcia where we thought we would meet Ken, Audrey, Lisa and Denise. Due to miscommunication, our fellow hikers went to Sawmill Lake instead. After David and I realized that our friends weren’t going to arrive, we walked to the Monument Trail and then turned right (south) on the Appalachian Trail. Ken, Audrey, Lisa and Denise walked north from Sawmill Lake on the AT, and we met just after David and I crossed Route 23. Then we all headed back to Lake Marcia, stopping at a wooden platform on the AT that had views of both New Jersey to the east and Pennsylvania to the west. Visibility was very good.

At Lake Marcia, we met Janice and Suzanne. Although the beach and lake were crowded, most of us went swimming. Then Ken, David and I took a shortcut trail that started from a picnic area and led to a spot on Route 23 near our campsite. After we crossed Route 23, Ken took a trail to Sawmill Lake to pick up his car and David and I returned to our site.

At the Saturday night campfire, Denise and I skewered two marshmellows with sharpened sticks. We then roasted them together over the fire. I explained to the group that 25 years previously, during the July 4th weekend of 1980, a couple named Pasha and Steve met at group site B in High Point State Park. They were married a year later and now have three teenage children. The two marshmellows fused together with the heat of the fire and I swallowed them both.

On Sunday, we all took different hikes. Denise, Ken and I drove to Sawmill Lake, took the blue-dot trail (a steep climb) to the AT and turned south on the AT. We hiked on the AT till we came to a shelter near Dutch Shoe Rock. Although Ken’s map showed a lookout point named Dutch Shoe Rock, we never found a rock that looked like a Dutch shoe.

David Levner