Date: 2015-10-22
From: West Cornwall Road

To: Salisbury, CT
Miles today: 16.2
Weather: clear sky

I¢ve been offline since we climbed Mt. Kathadin on August 13. The day after our summit and the great meal that Janelle made for us, we all said goodbye and headed our separate ways. We all hoped to get together one more time before Focus returned to France for the autumn, but it didn¢t happen and he is already out of country until next year. Princess & I have spent a lot of time reconnecting at home and with family. After we returned to Virginia, we headed out to Georgia, Alabama, Florida, DC, New York, and Ohio. Sadly, a long-time friend and NASA colleague, Rob Anderson, passed away several weeks ago. He has been following us on Trail Journals and we had the opportunity to visit him several times after we returned this year. We miss him a great deal.In the meantime, our ToDo list seems to be getting longer, not shorter. Our plan this year has been to write a ¢how-to¢ book on slack-packing the AT that describes our experiences and strategies, and we are moving along with that project. Princess is also laying out plans to hike the John Muir Trail next year. We¢re not contemplating a third AT trek at this point.Recently, Spartacus notified us that he planned to hike the AT section in Connecticut that he skipped this past summer in order to hike with us (his final section to complete the entire trail). The section is 17 miles NoBo into Salisbury, CT and we did it earlier this year. But we told Spartacus when he skipped ahead that we would come back to hike it with him, so we dusted off our gear, packed up and drove north. Hudson and Big Lu very graciously invited us to stay at their Bearded Woods Bunk & Dine facility near Salisbury and we arrived on Wednesday, October 21. Big Lu is a fabulous hostess and chef, and cooked up a great pork dinner to fortify us for our trek. On the spur of the moment, Big Lu decided to join us for at least part of the hike.We persuaded everyone to rise before daybreak on Thursday, Big Lu cooked us an omelet breakfast and we all set out around 8AM. We left Spartacus¢ truck at the end point in Salisbury, left Big Lu¢s vehicle at the 10-mile point in Falls Village, and then Hudson drove all of us to our starting point where the AT crosses West Cornwall Road. It has already snowed at the Bearded Woods, but we were lucky and the weather was quite warm for the season and no rain. The drive to the trail was through quintessential CT rural country and the trees were ablaze with autumn colors. This stretch of the AT is relatively easy compared to other sections in the state, with just a short initial climb through a rock outcropping. The remainder of the hike was very pleasant with occasional sunshine. Spartacus slowed his pace a little, enabling us to catch up on news about each other and talk about future plans. I think we filled the entire trek with conversation. We stopped several times to let Big Lou catch up - I shot a video of her coming down a hill and she declared that her alternate trail name is ¢Little-Step¢. I believe that the Big in ¢Big Lu¢ refers to her personality rather than her stature.For readers who hiked through this area later this summer, you will remember that there was a 3-mile detour around the Iron Mountain bridge near Falls Village that is being replaced. There has been some progress on the bridge, but the detour is still there and it involves a long road walk on Dugway Road. We learned from locals that the new bridge should be in place by the end of the year, none too soon since the detour road is very narrow and not a pleasant walk. We stopped for lunch about 10 miles into the hike, near the impressive waterfall on the Housatonic River at Falls Village. Big Lu packed lunch sandwiches for us and they really hit the spot. None of us had done any serious hiking since we finished Katahdin in August, so our trail-legs weren¢t up to par and the break was welcome. This was the point where we had prepositioned a car and Big Lu decided to drive it back to Bearded Woods. The 3 of us pressed on to the finish in Salisbury where Spartacus left his truck and then we drove back to Bearded Woods. Afterwards, we treated Big Lu and Hudson to dinner at the nearby Falls Village Inn. It¢s a really good restaurant and we all had good eats, good spirits and a good time. It was a celebratory dinner in honor of Spartacus' accomplishment and we toasted his successful completion of the AT. It's particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that he did it with 2 artificial knees. But it was over too quickly and we headed back to Bearded Woods to rest up for the drive back home the next day. We all resolved to try to link up again in the near future, possibly to hike in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Perhaps more to come?