Date: 2019-03-20
From: Dawn Hill Road 

To: West Cornwall Road 
Miles today: 6.5
Weather: mist

An early start this morning lent itself to a front row seat of the morning birds concert. Priceless! Immediately we started going UP. There was a little bit of hand over hand bouldering. We climbed to 1142ft elevation and were rewarded with a great view! We came down the other side to find a water crossing waiting for us. Guinea Brook is most likely a fairly simple crossing any other time of year.  It¢s a wide brook and definitely requires rocks or a barefoot crossing. The problem is that this time of year melting mountain snow has caused Guinea Brook to swell. Not only swell, but move swiftly.  I tried the Rocks first with boots on. The water was strong and the rocks were slippery. I slipped off landing on my feet, but I felt ice cold water spill over the top and into my boots.  I went back to the bank. We made our way up the bank looking for an easier crossing. The entire bank is a mixture of ice, snow, boulders, and downed trees. Making our way was tricky to say the least. At one point the ice gave way to my weight and I found myself falling in. I reached for a downed tree. One of my trekking poles went flying, then floating down the brook. Baby girl stopped it with her pole. It took me a minute to recover from the fall. I jammed my right ring finger on the tree. It remains sore and swollen to this minute. While I was getting myself together, the ice below Baby Girl¢s feet caved in. Down she went. Ugh!! We both ended up sitting on the downed tree. After some contemplation we pulled off our socks and boots. With our boots slung over a shoulder and our pants rolled up we put our plan in motion. I went first.  It was ice cold! I made it about a 1/4 of the way across before it got too deep. The force of the water was going to be too much for Baby Girl to navigate through. It was too much for me really. What to do? We put our socks and boots back on and decided to abort the plan. We had already made our way pretty far up the bank. It felt unsafe to hike back over cracking ice with water below. So we decided to bushwhack back up the side of the mountain. We found ourselves on a major road. Looking at Guthook¢s I could see this road crossed over the creek. I couldn¢t tell how far away but we started walking. Along came a truck and it was thumbs up for me and Baby Girl. He pulled over and said we were less than a half mile from our destination so we chose to continue walking.  A few minutes later we walked right over that brook. We made our way back down to the bank on the other side, and proceeded to bushwhack back down the bank towards the trail.  Well that didn¢t get us very far. The wet boulders, broken trees, ice, and water became too much. Soon we were bushwhacking our way up the side of that mountain...and it was steep!  Much to our liking we found another road up there. It ran parallel to the brook so we followed it. Even more to our liking, we eventually found white blazes! Yes we made it back!  By this time we were already exhausted and hungry. Not to mention we were both still cold from the frigid waters. Right on the trail was a good sized boulder with warm sun rays shining right on it. That would be our lunch Boulder.  We took a much needed break. After lunch I took a quick look at Guthook¢s to check our mileage. We were exactly 4 hours into the hike and had gone exactly 1.7 trail miles. You¢ve got to be kidding me!  Our plan had been to hike the last 13 miles of Connecticut today. There¢s no way we would get it done before dark. As soon as I had cell service I notified Papa Big Swig and made a plan B. We hiked a lot of UP over the next few miles. The payoff was great! Our final descent was a little snowy but not bad. The temperature was perfect with a sunshiny sky.  After only 6.4 miles we climbed back into the SUV. I can¢t help but feel this was somewhat of a wasted day. Now I have to finish up Connecticut tomorrow.  I didn¢t even take any pictures today  Until Next Time Blue Raccoon (2018/2019).