This day was simply a grind. Almost all of the entire day was just hiking deep in the forest with not a lot of special views to speak of and just dealing with an almost constant path of those rocks I call “ankle breakers.” Without a doubt, if I was still wearing the Altra Lone Peak shoes I had last, I would be in some serious pain. While my feet always hurt with a constant hike like this, it is nothing like what it could be thanks to these new Altra Olympus 4 shoes. I think I’ll be sticking to this model shoe from Altra. I was going to stop at Kirkridge Shelter but I didn’t like the campspots there. There was also only enough room for a few tents and two other hikers were already about to set up. I stopped there to get water from a faucet set up by a retreat center. That’s very nice of them because there is no water anywhere else up here. Just respect their sign not to go past the faucet and into their property. I hiked on not even half a mile when I came to a nice open field with a great view of the valley below. I hesitated to camp here because of the constant wind gusts blasting the area over and over, around 30 mph. I walked around into the woods and found more sites protected in the trees but ultimately, I came back to the open field. It’s perfectly flat and with no threat of rain, I’ll deal with the wind and enjoy the nice campsite. I set up camp early and only did 13.8 AT miles today. I could have done more but there’s no more camp spots as the trail is less than 7 miles down into Delaware Water Gap. After that, you cross a bridge and enter into New Jersey. It is too far to an official campsite so my options were to either camp here early or have to find a room in Delaware Water Gap. I have plenty of food and I’d rather be in my tent where it’s free then to find a room at an inn. Instead, I plan to walk down the 6+ miles to town, eat town food and top of my batteries, then cross the bridge into New Jersey, hit the 1,300 mile mark and make it to camp over there. Big day tomorrow with two milestones; a new State and 1,300 miles. Woohoo! Oh! Almost forgot. While I saw quite a few deer today, there’s a fawn that seems to have made a bed for itself over where I was hanging my food bag. Cute little thing. I don’t see momma though.