Date: 2009-07-16
From: Stewart Hollow Brook Lean-to, CT 

To: Limestone Springs Lean-to, CT
Miles today: 22.3

Cell noneOG notesYesterday C6 and I had a disagreement over the sign pointing to the shelter area. The sign pointed to Stewart Hollow Brook Campsites and never mentioned the Lean-to. By the way, our handbook calls the shelters Lean-tos not shelters, the Log Book in the shelter calls it a shelter. Connecticut is very confusing. Well back to the disagreement, I was sure the sign was pointing to the shelter and she felt it wasn't because it didn't say "Shelter." I WAS RIGHT. Part two of this story came today as we were hiking. We were timing ourselves as we hiked and figured we would be reaching the Pine Swamp Lean-to when a fellow coming the other way (southbound) asked us how far it was to the shelter. We told him we hadn't reached the shelter yet and expected to soon. He told us he had just passed a sign for the Pine Swamp Campsites. We told him what we discovered yesterday so he followed us back to the sign. We all walked down the blue blaze path to the shelter. We figured out to follow the trail to the campsites with the same name of the shelter you want.We had an interesting Detour today. The AT crosses a bridge that is under construction this summer. We came out of the woods and were met with a detour sign and instructions. We had a 3 mile road walk as we followed orange signs with white blazes on them. We have pictures of the signs and they'll be posted sometime in the future. As we hiked the detour, we passed the road entrance of Lime Rock Race Park. We have a picture of that sign, too. There is race being held this weekend so we saw activity there, unfortunately all we saw was things being set up. A few days ago we saw a few tractor trailers that looked like they contained race cars. The activity is nothing like NASCAR. This is a lot more low key.The detour probably saved us from being caught in a terrible rain storm this evening. There is nice diner on the other side of the detoured bridge. We probably would have stopped there for an early dinner, which would have gotten us into this shelter late. As it was, we raced here to avoid being caught out in the rain. We made it with about an hour to spare, dinner at the diner probably would have been longer. Lucky us.The storm hit about an hour after we arrived. The wind picked up and the rain started falling. With the rain came hail mostly 1/2 inch in diameter but there were others much bigger. Hail that size would have hurt if we had been hit by them, I doubt our ponchos would have helped with the impact. As the t-shirt says, "Life is Good". C6 notesYIKES!!!! We are in the middle of a severe thunderstorm as a cold front blows through. It started fast with HUGE hail (some looked to be up to 1"!). The hail has stopped, but it's been POURING for about 20 minutes now and there has been some loud, and close, thunder and lightening. I'm so thankful we're in our tent in the shelter!!!! I don't like that the shelter has a tin roof, but we're down in a valley, with a lot of huge trees around, so I figure we're about as safe as we can be. The hail sure was loud on the tin roof. I feel badly for a couple who are in a tent down the hill from the shelter. And Monkeywrench is in his hammock down there, too. Hammocks don't have the problem of potentially ending up in a mud puddle, but have the same risk from hail on the cover tarp as tents do. The couple's tent looks as if it fared the hail okay. It's the same tent as ours, and it's supposed to be good in water, so they should be okay.The creek down the hill is a raging creek now. I'm sure all the others around here are as well with all the rain that has come down in a very short period of time. OG had his radio on for a while and they were talking flash flood warnings. No surprise there, with how hard it rained. It's about 45 minutes later now and the rain has almost stopped. What a storm! I still hear thunder, but in the distance, so I believe the worst is behind us now. Whew!We hiked a lot of miles today, and there were some tough hills. It was challenging, but satisfying. We got rained on this morning, then the sun came out as we stopped for lunch. OG got out his radio to listen for the weather and heard about this cold front storm coming. We hoped it would not get here until we were settled in for the night...and that's exactly what happened. We started hearing thunder about 30 minutes before we reached the shelter. God takes such good care of us! We made it to the shelter with enough time to get water, cook and eat dinner, and set up our stuff for the night. Just as we finished everything the storm started. Thank you, God.Old Goat & Check Six