Date: 2022-06-11
From: Stealth Site NY22

To: Schaghitcoke Campsite
Miles today: 13.9
Weather: scattered clouds

¢You won¢t get your trial legs until you¢ve hiked three weeks.¢Or six weeks. Or a month. Or 100 miles. Or. Or. Or. This saying is thrown around with all the different permutations. The idea is that eventually a thru hiker¢s body will optimize itself to hike. Joni and I have been careful to try to keep the mileages around 10 per day for these first two weeks. Todays plan was 8 miles after doing 12+ yesterday. We woke up and the boys got into the flow. I was just keeping up. The Diesel and the Dirtbikes. The trail legs seems to be getting under us.We arrived at the planned destination (Ten Mile Shelter) at 12:15 feeling good. Bulls Bridge Country Store was a short 1.5 miles ahead a little off the trail. So we ate a snack lunch and rolled on. We crossed the Ten Mile River at its confluence with the Housatonic - I¢m a fan of confluences. BBCS was down a blue-blazed side trail. The boys blasted past it and Joni - guessing what had happened when she arrived at the junction and the boys weren¢t there - continued white-blazing in pursuit. I got to the junction and no one was there. I, too, guessed what had happened but headed to the store. The white blazes would hit a road very soon, the boys would wait, Joni would catch them and turn everyone down the road to the store. All¢s well that ends well. It was an easy mistake with an easy fix this time and a good opportunity to talk about the dangers of ¢autopilot¢.BBCS had all the hiker vices. We raided the electrolyte drinks and the ice cream cooler and sat outside at the picnic tables for about 30 minutes. We took inventory of our food keeping in mind we¢ll be leaving the trail (temporarily) tomorrow morning. We added two Jumbo honeybuns and a bag of Jolly Ranchers to the stock, refilled water bottles, and set out for a campsite (this one) 5 miles away. There was a ¢Georgia Climb¢ right off the bat. Georgia really is a stout stretch of trail. I¢m sure we¢ll get into more ¢vert¢ in places and we have, admittedly, started in a relatively easy section of trail. It is nice that the boys can look at an imposing section of profile map and say ¢We¢re from Georgia. Bring it on.¢Surprises so far:Joni eats honeybuns. The boys really are pros at camping. We¢re with a scout troop tonight and Grayson can camp circles around these guys. Restaurant food abundance. The amont of FUN we¢re having in the weeks that are typically some of the hardest. Our plan is the hike to the Kent welcome center in the morning. Hopefully we can dodge the morning rain. (We¢ve gotten hard rain 5 times and have been in shelter or tent for 4 of those. A veritable AT miracle). Ashley will meet us mid afternoon and return us the trail Tuesday morning. We¢re shooting for Great Barrington MA where we¢ll meet Neil and Karen Denowitz. We¢ve sent food and gear to them via Jordan and Susan and have also shipped a few orders to them. We¢ll zero in Great Barrington and are trying to concoct a way to not be there on a weekend. Hotel rates are higher and more so in the ¢resort¢ town. We crossed into Connecticut today! Goodbye to New York. We loved it! There were several spots in NY that were idyllic. Harriman State Park in June will be a favorite of mine. Greenwood Lake was a gem. The boulders-in-ferns dotted with maples - home to the Vireo, midday songbird - are the hallmark here.