We dropped Knitting Bull’s car off at NJ 284 and then drove back to High Point State Park. The park opens at 8 AM during the winter and since there was no one at the guard shack, we did have to pay anything. There was a restroom open near the entrance of the park with heat.
We parked Dirigo’s truck at a picnic area near the green trail (just beneath the summit). We then hiked less than 1/2 mile to reach the AT. We didn’t have to hike very far to reach the High Point Shelter. This shelter was in good shape but due to all the rain, there was a lot of mud just in front of the shelter. The bear box had an un-openned bag of candy on the top shelve. The privy was immaculate!
The rest of the day was mostly downhill so Knitting Bull was in the lead most of the time. Unfortunately, she suffered with indigestion during the hike.
There wasn’t any signage during this hike or any significant landmarks except for road crossings (which were not marked).
We hiked through a field and then over a stile. Since the sun was out and we were all nice and warm, We decided this would be a good place to take our New Years picture and sip on the sparkling grape juice.
We hiked through another cow pasture but this time there were planks over the field. Thank you!
We hiked on bog bridges through Vernie Swamp and we were very glad that we weren’t doing this section in the summer time because it would have been very buggy and stinky.
We started to hear gunfire just before Unionville Road and when we crossed Quarry Road, the shots were too close for comfort! Knitting Bull said that it was probably target practice since it was Sunday but the shots were definitely from a high powered automatic weapon.
As we approached Lott Road we heard several dogs barking and fortunately they were all fenced in. The owner of the house opened his front door and let out his German Shepherd who ran down the fence to check us out. We saw the dam on our left as we crossed Lott Road and reentered the woods.
The final section of the trail was on an old rail road grade before it gently descended into 284.