Date: 2008-09-10
From: Happy Hill Shelter

To: Cloudland Shelter
Miles today: 10.5

Happy Hill Shelter to Cloudland Shelter10.5 miles The Dartmouth college orientation group that shared the tentsites last night were a rowdy bunch. Finally at 11pm Chill had to ask them to quiet down some. They did so when asked, but it's a shame they didn't have enough courtesy to have to be asked! Their leader was very apologetic this morning, explaining that he had arranged some additional students to 'raid' their camp. It was apparently supposed to occur before 10pm but the raiders got lost. The other hikers that were in the shelter told us that just befor 11 the raiders turned up there, having walked right past the tentsite where the students were camped, with a massive boom box which they turned on to surprise the students. The 6 hikers they woke up were not very happy.We got an early start despite being up so late, maybe because it was so cold last night. We both got up commenting how it had been the first night that we'd been cold in our sleeping bags. Chill is using a summer bag, and it's probably time to switch out for a heavier one. I have been using a heavier weight bag all along because I sleep so cold, but I haven't been using my liner bag because I had been too sweaty in it. I guess I'll be using it again after the next time we pick our our mail. Our nice early start put us in West Hartford by 10am. The General Store there has a deli and grill, and they were still serving breakfast. It was very good, but filled me up so I needed a good hour long break afterwards. The bulk of the day's hiking was generally uphill, which kept us warm on this sunny, but cool breezy day. The weather forecast is for temperatures to drop close to freezing tonight. We don't really relish another cold night but had only a few options. There was a family in West Hartford that allows hikers to camp in their barn, but doing so, while warm, would mean only a 3 mile day, and we really wanted to go farther. The next shelter was on the top of a hill, already very cold even in mid afternoon when we arrived there, and still would mean less than a 10 mile day. We decided to continue on, hoping that a brook we would cross in a few more miles might have a sheltered spot to camp at. Around 5pm we approached Cloudland Road and saw a sign for the Cloudland shelter. This shelter is on private property apparently, and though it was once an official AT shelter it has been 'decommissioned' and no longer appears on the maps or in the guidebooks. There was a notice next to the sign saying the shelter was in good repair and had a water supply. We decided that if it wasn't well known then there is a good chance that no one else may be using it tonight, and if we could get a shelter all to ourselves for a night we could actually erect my tent inside the shelter and double up inside it for the night. The combined body heat from two of us in my little tent should more than make up for any shortfall in our sleeping bags' ratings, especially if we have the additional coverage of the shelter to keep the breeze out. So here we are now, we waited till dark and we do indeed have this sweet unused little shelter to ourselves. The tent is up inside and we're both buried inside our bags, toasty warm so far. Hopefully this plan will work out and we'll stay that way and get some better rest tonight.