Section Hike #3 – New Jersey

Last updated on: July 18, 2026 at 11:28 am by Rob Giannamore

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Section Hike #3 – New Jersey 2026-07-18T11:28:23-04:00 Rob Giannamore

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It was 24 years in the making, but this week, my wife and I after raising four beautiful children, were able for the first time go on vacation without the kids. Now, when I say vacation, I am not talking about lazing about on the beach, that is something that our family likes to do (not me really), I am talking about the kind of fun one has when they are backpacking in the backcountry. For my full week of vacation this week, I spent the time with my bride backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey – 28 miles from Greenwood Lake, New York to Unionville, New Jersey. We would then get off the trail and do some exploring in the tri state area of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey – in what would become an epic week of adventuring.

The Planning

Nineish months ago, I came up with a hairbrained idea to take my wife backpacking, it was more of a nostalgia thing than anything else, we really fell in love and decided to get married in October after a fall backpacking trip in Eastern Pennsylvania in college. Initially, the plan was to go back to the high peaks of the Adirondacks and do a couple of days in the backcountry there. Somewhere in the narrative, the Appalachian Trail came up and doing a small section in New Jersey entered the chat. Somewhere further in the chat, my wife with no real backpacking experience to speak of thought it would be cool to do the entire New Jersey section. Having done four sections already and a number of ultra marathons in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, I was skeptical, but went with it, I thought we could use a good challenge.

Planning was simple enough, use the FarOut app to plan the hike, line up shuttles and reserve hotels and hostels for the event, buy the necessary equipment.

With my wife’s lack of experience, it was agreed that we would take two cars so that we could slackpack and do manageable point to point hikes if things got too much for her. The final plans were three days on the trail, get to a car, pick up the other car, check into a hotel and move cars to the next point. We would do this twice, with two nights in a hotel and the final day a slack pack of 12 miles to finish the hike.

Training began in earnest and I assigned my wife to carry a 20lb backpack several times a week for 10,000 steps for the 5 months prior to the hike to get ready.

Reality is an Unmovable Force

The hike as many of our hikes do, did not go as planned. I once talked my wife into running a 50k and while she completed it, it was a one and done for her, her feet, specifically her plantar fasciitis really kept her from doing more. Training always has been a challenge for her as well, she really does not like to go to the gym and train, both for hiking and biking events. She did a great job on this hike for what she trained for, but her lack of consistency and meeting her weekly step goals kinda bit her in the butt. Her old nemesis, her feet also came around and caused her problems as well.

I did a section hike up in New York back on Memorial Day weekend and after seeing what I encountered there, I knew that my wife would be in trouble by our third day into our hike. We have a saying in the ultra running community, your body will hold out as far as you train it. Missing her weekly 10000 step training goal, I knew that she would probably blow up around day 2 or 3 given the terrain. As my hike in June went, the heat was also becoming a problem as well and my wife really struggles with the heat. Three weeks out from our hike, I changed our plans to better fit where my wife was at and in the end, it turned out to be a better experience overall for her. We ended up with three backcountry days, two full days and one half day, 27 miles overall. Her feet gave out and the heat kicked her butt, but she completed it. I could not be more proud of her.

Reality is an unmovable force and on the trail as in life, we must all plan for contingencies and things not going as planned. An added benefit this week was the Canadian wildfire smoke. That was not in the plans and made our last day hike on Thursday very challenging. We can complain about what we could not do, or we can take it all in, accepting what we did accomplish. As Jimmy Buffett once sang, “breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

The Rhythm

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, backpacking is a different kind of fun, Type II fun mostly, especially as I have found in New York, Pennsylvania and now, New Jersey. If I think about it too much, I find myself getting annoyed at the trail planners, the rocks and generally everything. If however, one can see that there is a rhythm to the movement, it all becomes very contemplative.

On Monday, I was thinking about this as we were well into the morning of day two, working our way up another hill, what is known as pointless ups and downs or PUDs. Once I got out of my head for a moment and thought about this notion of rhythm, I was reminded of my time in preformation where the rhythm of my day was prayer and study. The click clack of my hiking poles and the crunch of my shoes on the gravel, the bird songs and the stone walls all brought me to the present and made me grateful to have had the opportunity to share this amazing experience with my bride.

Bridal Veil Falls

Bushkill Falls

In the end, we ended up with 28 Appalachian Trail miles, around 30 overall hiking miles, a 12 mile bike ride and saw some amazing waterfalls. I am not sure how excited she is about doing it again, though she said she was interested.

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