{"id":2796,"date":"2021-12-30T14:30:25","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T14:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/?p=2796"},"modified":"2021-12-30T14:30:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T14:30:25","slug":"a-new-york-state-of-mind-our-at-section-hike-day-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/2021\/12\/30\/a-new-york-state-of-mind-our-at-section-hike-day-five\/","title":{"rendered":"A New York State of Mind \u2013 Our AT Section Hike Day Five"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RPH Was a Highlight of My Day<\/p><\/div>\n

Today was our last day on trail. It ended up being a half day of hiking.<\/p>\n

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View of the Beach at Canopus Lake from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

When we awoke there were three deer eating in the tenting field. They kept their distance, but continued grazing.<\/p>\n

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Canopus Lake from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

It was cold this morning. I didn’t want to get out of my quilt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We climbed up Shenandoah Mountain. There were views overlooking Canopus Lake. At the summit there’s an American flag painted on the rock slabs in memory of the 9-11 attacks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

I was excited to see the RPH shelter. I’d seen it on many AT videos. It didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

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Approaching RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

The RPH (Ralph’s Peak Hiker Cabin) shelter is close to a road, so you can order pizza or Chinese delivery.<\/p>\n

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Inside RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

RPH had mowed lawns, a garden, tables, chairs, and a covered patio. And of course, the famous feet coming down from the ceiling. There’s a convenient water pump as well. The sign does say to still filter the water.<\/p>\n

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Even the RPH Feet Are Sporting Altras<\/p><\/div>\n

We met a group of three section hikers, Rock Hater (formerly Rock Hopper), Grandaddy (formerly Grandaddy Longlegs), and Just Greg. We talked for awhile. Two of them were former thru hikers.<\/p>\n

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The Back of RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

We encountered a few light sprinkles, which was much better than the forecasted rain, high winds, and thunderstorms. This was the sunniest day overall during our hike.<\/p>\n

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Sign at RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

Several months later, when I looked at the photos the of the vegetation at RPH, it was much more sparse than I remembered.\u00a0The gardens at RPH had looked so vibrant and alive to me after a long Maine winter. Seeing plants springing to life in APRIL!\u00a0<\/strong>gave me hope that spring would soon come to Maine.<\/p>\n

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I Was So Happy to See These Colorful Flowers<\/p><\/div>\n

I didn’t recognize our car when we arrived back at our destination, the AT parking lot off NY Rt 52.\u00a0 I thought we still had further to go. We hadn’t seen any hikers, except at RPH. I saw our car and thought, “Someone else is out hiking. We might run into them!”<\/p>\n

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The AT Adjacent to RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

Now our car is very plain and common, but the bigger reason is that we came into the parking lot in a different way than I was expecting. In 2018, I had finished a south bound section hike at this same parking lot. But the trail had gone right through the parking lot at that time. A small, reroute had happened since then and the parking lot is now slightly off trail. It doesn’t take much to throw me off.<\/p>\n

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Bunks Inside RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

After arriving at the car, we cleaned up as best we could and headed to the Mountain Top Deli, a half mile down the road from the parking lot.\u00a0We both had meatball subs for lunch before driving home. Our trail miles today totaled 10.1 miles.<\/p>\n

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A Picture of Comfort… RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Grounds at RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

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Canopus Lake and Beach from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

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View from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

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View from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another View from Shenandoah Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n

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Water Source for RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Grounds of RPH<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was our last day on trail. It ended up being a half day of hiking. When we awoke there were three deer eating in the tenting field. They kept their distance, but continued grazing. It was cold this morning. I didn’t want to get out of my quilt. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,53,29,177],"tags":[67,70,49,56,15,18,54],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2796"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2823,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions\/2823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpottle.com\/outside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}