Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

View from the top of Wawayanda Mountain

I couldn't help but play the somber sounds of Jimmy Page's guitar in my head as Kyle and I ventured up Wawayanda Mountain on the "Stairway to Heaven" trail on this beautiful November afternoon.

Located near Hewitt, N.J, in Sussex County, just near the New Jersey/New York border, this trail is actually part of the Appalachian Trail. Kyle had scouted out this trail online a couple months back, and we've always been wanting to go. So today, we thought, why not finally climb those damn stairs?

I didn't even count the number of boulder "stairs" on the trail, but let's just say it was quite the work-out. My legs are probably going to be sore tomorrow.

We wore our packs not out of necessity, but for the added weight for an extra workout. After hiking about a mile and a half up the mountain, we took in the awesome view from the top and took tons of photos. It was freakin' awesome (as is clearly evident in the above photograph, lol). There is another trail that splits off the AT to bring hikers on a return loop back down the mountain, but we decided to take the AT back down to the trail head. If we would have got out there earlier in the day, we would have done the full loop, but the sun was already sinking quickly into the horizon even at 3 p.m.

 Coming down the mountain was even trickier than ascending. Kyle joked that the way down was the "Stairway to Hell." It sure felt like hell on my knees at times, as I hoisted myself down from multiple boulders while balancing the 25 pounds on my back. (Yeah, I didn't put much in my pack but whatever, 25 pounds is better than nothing, right?).

When we had finally descended the mountain, we looked back at the steep ridge ahead of us with nothing but satisfaction.



Love is all you need