The end of May and Memorial Day - the weekend which, coupled with Labour Day at the start of September, seems to define summer. We were really looking forward to this long weekend as, the absence of a long weekend at the start of May had left us feeling in need of a break (it is surprising how the ebb and flow of public holidays gets into your pyschy and how a different schedule gets things all awry).
To continue our exploration of national parks, we headed camping in The Delaware River Gap (http://www.nps.gov/dewa/index.htm). This park spans the Delaware river as it crosses from New York state to New Jersey. It is particularly famous for the "Gap" - a gorge formed over squillions of years as water erosion has split the Kittatinny Ridge (on the Appalachian trail) into two - Mt Minsi on the Pennsylvania side and Mt Tammany on the New Jersey side. We arrived kitted out with our new hot weather tent (no need for outers designed to keep heat in and water out here - although we did end up pitching the tent in a thunder storm and fortunately did not get wet .......). We also had our newly washed and rewashed sleeping bags so that no bears were tempted to snack on us during the night.
We camped at Dingman's Ferry - crossing point of the ENORMOUS Delaware river and enjoyed some rather ecletic music at the campsite "festival" on the first night - although I think that the atmosphere might not have been as hoped due to rain.
On the second day we walked from the camp ground on a 4 mile round trip through the Eastern hemlock forests to see firstly Silverthread falls (80ft single thread drop & a good warm up) and then the main attraction - Dingman's falls - a 130ft drop of several falls cascading down the hill side. The falls were great but we hadn't quite bargained on the tropical like heat and humditiy (I like to think that this was the reason for a long face) and the uphill trek didn't really help. By the end of the day, when there was no sign of another thunder storm to clear the air, we decided to break camp early and head home and so we didn't actually see the Gap (or any bears for that matter) at all - next time.
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