Our Last Full Day at the Delaware Water Gap!

Well, as per usual, the days here at Timothy Lake South CG have flown by.  We have been extremely busy hiking and biking the area and it has been great!

Today we left the CG around 10 and headed to the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap to hike the Tammany Trail.  Ken and I had done it several years ago and loved the panoramic view of the area from the top, but I didn't remember how tough a hike it was. 

We left the parking lot around 10:50 and the Tammany Trail (Red Trail) started by going up numerous steps before getting on the very rocky and steep climb. It was 1.2 miles to the top, but because of the terrain, it seemed so much further and so tiring.  Thank goodness for hiking poles!!!!  

What do you mean, look out for the snakes?????

After the steps, we began the uphill climb.....

....and more uphill climbing!

When we got to the 1st vista, I thought we were at the top, but no, we had only gone about 1/2 way. We all agreed that it is another one of those "toughest" trails.  So many, many, rocks!!!!

Okay, the 1st vista view was amazing and I actually thought
we were near the top!  NOOOOOO!

There was more rock climbing to do.....

......and more.....

....and more.  Are you sure this is the trail???????

The view from the top is gorgeous and I guess it makes all that hiking worth it! Thank goodness we had snacks and water bottles.  You could go back the same way, but we felt that was too steep of an option for the downhill journey.  So we opted to do the loop trail (the blue trail) back to the parking lot which added about another 2.2 miles for a total of a 3.4 mile hike.

You can see for miles........

.......and miles!

Going down was a lot easier than the upward climb, but still very rocky.  I did stop to build another cairn - After all, I want people to know I did the hike!

These things are so much fun to build!

 The last 1/2 mile is very beautiful along a stream with lots of ferns.  We got back to the car at 2 and we were very thankful to be done hiking!

Beautiful, huh?????

So many small waterfalls!

So, on our return trip to the campground we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream - we all deserved a treat after the tough hike and we were hungry.  We hadn't taken lunch with us. We only got small cones, but they were yummy! We were back by 3 and the work began to prepare for our departure tomorrow morning for Hershey.  Ken did lots of work outside while I went through almost every cupboard and storage area inside Waldo to decide what we would take back to the apartment and what would go with us on our trip South.  

The 4 of us did take time to sit in the sunshine and enjoy some drinks and relax before having dinner and doing dishes.  After dinner, Ken disconnected the sewer, water, and cable (we didn't have any channels while we were here!)  I did some work on the blog while Ken got the GPS information ready for tomorrow.  

Cindy called and asked if we were okay.  She was sure I must have gotten sick, because I got behind on my blog.  I told her I was just too busy and tired to keep it up to date.

We were over at Chuck and Melissa's from 8 to 10:30 playing Skip-Bo and Pinochle.  The men won both games tonight and they couldn't quit bragging about how good they were!  Really????  They haven't won 2 games in the same night for quite awhile.  Again, we thought we should "ease up" a little since they will do all the driving tomorrow!