(Daily Mi: 7.2) Spent about two hours drying gear in the sun this morning. My rolling tobacco is pretty hopeless. Sunny day, but the Trail was still very wet from last night's rain. Running water in the trailbed in many spots (the Appalachian Creek).

Hiked five miles to the visitors center at High Point State Park by about 1 pm and met up with Piper and the Potato Man. Met an alleged former thru-hiker named "Mister Blister" at the visitor center who promised to bring us four Klondike bars. It seemed possible that he was joking. It seemed possible that he was not. Several times we got up to leave, but it was pleasant laying in the sun on the lawn of the visitors center, and it would have been very rude to take off if he wasn't joking.

As such, the Potato Man, Piper and I ended up waiting until almost 4 o'clock before deciding that he had either been joking or was perhaps evil (Potato Man voted for evil) and then hiked on to the shelter. The Trail passed close to New Jersey's "high-point" (about 1700') on the way to the shelter (hence the name). I climbed an observation tower on the way from which I could see this edifice, but could not suss out exactly how to get there without undertaking a road walk. Big crowd at the shelter. Basically the same folks from two nights before at the Brinks Road Shelter (minus the mosquitoes). Snaps and Evergreen carried pack guitars and jammed for a bit. Then Evergreen set up a mini-disk player (he carries a little heavy). The first song up was Ripple, and everyone stopped what they were doing to sing quietly along.