Pochuck Mountain

Pochuck Mountain, Appalachian Trail (5/26/2008)

This out-and-back covers another 3 miles of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey, nearly all of it on the several peaks of Pochuck Mountain. We parked at the trail crossing on Route 565 (enough room here for a couple of cars), and headed towards Georgia, passing through swamps, open fields, deep forests and ridges. At Lake Walkill Road, we turned around and retraced our steps.

We met several AT through-hikers, including one recently retired couple in their mid to late 40s who started in Georgia 13 weeks ago. They estimate that they'll finish in about 9 weeks. That's a very good pace. A couple of hours later we met a solo hiker in his mid-20s who started in Georgia in early March! He probably overtook the other couple later that day.

This 6+ mile hike took us about 4 hours and was quite strenuous with several steep ups and downs.

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