Don’t Blame You
Today is July 22, and Jon and I are in our tents at the Stuart Hollow Brook campsite after hiking about 14.5 miles. We're still in Connecticut.
We woke up this morning at the Ten Mile shelter after a decent night's sleep and got going probably at about 7:15. Interestingly, when Jon and I got to the campsite yesterday, we were the first people to arrive, and only a few people trickled in after us. But apparently, a bunch of hikers came in overnight, because when we got up in the morning, it was like tent city. I guess a lot of people put in a big day and just didn’t make it to the Ten Mile campsite until after 9 o'clock.
The climbs today were a lot more frequent and a lot more difficult than they were yesterday. It was actually a decent amount of elevation gained — for Connecticut, at least. The weather was also a lot more humid. Jon’s always been super athletic, and we’ve hiked together a bunch in the past, but I was really impressed with how he handled the heat. He's used to the considerably drier weather out in Idaho.
Oh, a bit of good news — I got a text from our shuttle driver that she’d gotten her cat back! One of the maintenance workers found it wandering around on the monastery property and was able to return it to her. So that was nice to hear.
At around 12:30, we pulled into a campsite, and we’d been hiking about 9 miles at that point. I was thinking that maybe since it was only Jon's second day, and given the heat and his jet lag and all, we’d just stop there for the night. But Jon was up for pressing on. So we stopped long enough to have a nice lunch and then did a little bit of a hike down to a road crossing.
When we got to the road, we saw signs saying that there was a detour. The part of the trail that went back up into the mountains on the other side of the road was closed. I’d already seen in the Far Out app that the detour was coming up, so it was nothing overly surprising, but while we were standing next to the sign showing the new route, a guy drove up on a rather large riding mower.
He shut the engine off and asked if we needed help. We explained that we were just reading about the detour, and he gave us directions on how to get back on the trail. But then he said, “You know... a lot of hikers choose to do the road walk instead of the detour.”
We’d already hiked about 10 miles at that point, and it was very thick and humid out, but we decided to wait and make our decision about what we would do after we completed the first part of the detour, before the trail went back into the woods. So we made our way down the road a bit, and when we got to the point where the trail went into the woods, we could tell that it basically went straight up — and for what looked like a quite a while, too.
Jon and I just kind of looked at each other for a few moments, and I was thinking, I’m hot. We’re tired. And we still have a good five miles left to go. So I suggested that we just do the road walk, and Jon seemed happy with that choice. We continued down the road, which more or less ran parallel with the non-detour section of the AT, and where the road met back up with the trail at the Housatonic River, we ran into a guy who was giving out Trail Magic. Of course, I didn’t take any pictures. [Wife note: No worries! AI to the rescue!]
He was a very nice gentleman called Spraying Rice. That was his trail name back in ’89. He was waiting for a hiker named Pac-man — who I think is his nephew, and I believe I've met him before — and had brought donuts and Gatorade. I asked, “Do you still offer Trail Magic to people who did the road walk instead of going over the ridge?”
He just looked at us and said, “In this weather, I don't blame you.” So we happily sat down and enjoyed some donuts and grapes and drank some Gatorade.
We were probably there for a good 30 or 40 minutes, just having a nice chat, but then we started to hear rumbling in the distance and decided we’d better get moving. Unfortunately, though, we’d come to that decision a little late — actually, a lot late. We got absolutely poured on.
It was still raining when we got to the campsite, so we sought refuge in the shelter in hopes of waiting it out. A father-daughter combo was already here, and they’re doing a section hike together. The father actually happens to be the dean of the law school at St. John's, which is the rival law school to Cardozo, which is where Jon went to law school. This guy also taught a few classes at Cardozo. So the two of them had a good talk about judges and professors and law things.
The rain eventually let up and thankfully held off long enough for us to set up our tents and eat. As we were finishing dinner, Gloss and Low Key showed up. I was really happy to see them again. Gloss immediately came up to me and said, “Hey, I thought you were behind us!”
I explained that I’d needed to get off the trail for a little while and then had to estimate where I should get back on, given when and where I’d planned to meet up with Jon. So I guess I wasn't too far off. We talked a little bit about the section I’d missed — or skipped, I should say — and they both said that it was just absolute misery. Gloss said that's probably another reason I was able to get ahead of them. They’d only been able to do about 10 miles a day in eastern Pennsylvania, because it was so hot and so difficult to navigate. I can't say I regret missing that section, now. It's possible I could still go back and revisit it, but after hearing how it went for those guys, odds have it that I won't. TBD, I guess.
Now, we're in our tents, and I fully expect it to start raining overnight. I'm hoping it won’t rain too much, but either way, I think a wet camp takedown tomorrow morning is inevitable.
