Date: 2017-07-31
From: CT 4, Cornwall Bridge, CT/The Hitching Post Motel

To: Sharon Mountain Campsite
Miles today: 8.3

7/31CT 4, Cornwall Bridge, CT/The Hitching Post Motel to Sharon Mountain Campsite8.3 milesTotal miles:  1486.7Happy Birthday to my son, Stephen! While this entry is about July 31st, I'm writing it in early in the morning of August 1st, which is Stephen's birthday. Stephen hiked with me from Hot Springs to Erwin. He is a wonderful young man, with many talents. He is an avid homebrewer, as well as my walking and lifting partner back home.  I have often said that one of the most gratifying parts of being a parent is when you have adult children who would be close friends even if they weren't your children. I have been blessed this way three times.  Happy Birthday, Stephen, and I hope you have a great day.  I woke up at my regular time this morning and took the bag of laundry to the hotel office. I got dressed and leisurely packed some things.  We had to.wait for our clothes before we could check out and head for the general store for resupply. The plan was to resupply and then head for Belters Campsite, 11.2 miles ahead.  Our clothes were soon returned, transformed almost magically into clean looking, and clean smelling, garments. It is a wonderful feeling to be clean and wearing clean clothes. A warm day was in the forecast, so I knew this wouldn't last long, but it was great while it lasted. It was while packing up that I realized I was missing an important part of my gear.  My fuel bottle, a plastic bottle full of denatured alcohol, was not to be found. I then realized what probably happened.  When I took that bad spill yesterday, all of my water bottles came flying out of my pack onto the trail. I am guessing my fuel bottle also went flying and landed off the trail in the brush.  Again, fortune smiled upon me. On the way to the general store, I stopped at the Benjamin Moore paint dealer across the street. I purchased a small can of alcohol, and the employee there found an empty soda bottle in the trash. My fuel bottle now falsely advertises  that it is Barq's Root Beer, but it will work just fine. Denatured alcohol isn't always easy to find, and had this mishap occurred early in a resupply, I could have gone days without being able to use my stove. The Cornwall Country Market is a homey store that quickly became one of my favorite stores I have visited on the trail.  The owner was very helpful and friendly, as were the cooks in the back and the woman behind the counter.  I ordered a breakfast burrito that was huge and delicious.  I resupplied for four days and also purchased a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch today.  It was the perfect sandwich to eat several hours later sitting on a log in the woods.  I thanked the staff, and then Gravity and I headed back across the street to the Cornwall Package Store. My guidebook contains a teasing comment about this store, and states that stopping to sign their register can be refreshing. It is a tradition there that if a thru hiker signs their guest book, they receive a free beer.  Ethan, the very friendly and personable employee, showed us the available beers. I chose a Founders Session IPA. This is yet another example of a store in a small town reaching out to hikers.  There is a bulletin board with photos from Katahdin that hikers have sent them. Hopefully in a few months, my photo will be on their wall as well. It was around noon when we started back on the trail. The cloudless sky was bright blue, and the sun was busy doing its shining down thing.  The temperature was much warmer than it had been.  My nice, clean clothes rapidly were soaked in sweat again as I tackled the many ups and downs that comprised today's hike.  I decided to take the short Breadloaf side trail to a view of the surrounding mountains. On the overlook, I found the Honeymooners eating their lunch. We had a great reunion and discussed the beauty of Connecticut, the great weather of the past few days, and the difficulty of today's trail.  I hadn't seen them since we shared lunch in that stone pavilion many days ago, and it was good to catch up with them. I also met a wonderful group of young women today. They were with a wilderness school and were on their fifth day of a backpacking trip.  They will also be doing climbing and kayaking. We had a fun conversation about the hardships of backpacking (no showers, and Honesty really misses juice).  It was a great time, and I wish them well on all of their future adventures. I soon realized that today would continue to be a day of steep, rocky ascents and descents with very little easy trail. It was also very warm. I took a short nap by a little stream, and then hiked up another ascent and squeezed my way through a cracked boulder, similar to the Lemon Squeezer. This one was a bit easier and a lot of fun. I began to realize that our goal of Belters Campsite was probably too ambitious for today's weather and trail conditions. Sharon Mountain Campsite was three miles closer.  When Gravity caught up with me, we decided to alter plans and camp there instead. It was about 7:15 when I walked into the site, feeling pretty worn out and ready to call it a day. Several other hikers, including the Honeymooners and Heading Home (he's from Maine) were already there. We all concurred that it had been a tough hike today. I set up camp, fetched water from the nearby stream, cooked dinner, and headed for bed. It has been another very full day. According to my guidebook, tomorrow holds some views of waterfalls, a climb up Mount Prospect, and something called "Giant's Thumb."  That should prove interesting.