Date: 2017-07-03
From: Stewart Hollow Brook Shelter

To: Limestone Spring Shelter
Miles today: 21.3
Weather: few clouds

This morning I hung out in my tent, somewhere between asleep and conscious for about 30 min listening to rain on my tent. Finally I stuck my head out... And realized it wasn't raining. It was just water falling from the trees. Aaaaand so I had no more excuse for being lazy and packed up. I didn't see anyone else stirring in camp as I left, the disco tent now still and Molly having relocated to the shelter at some point during the night (probably by being flooded out of her tent, which she hadn't brought the bathtub floor for).I picked up where I left off last night, following the Housatonic river now covered by fog. The sun was trying to burn through and after a couple miles the trail turned away and headed uphill and so I followed. Looking down from the top of the hill, the fog had begun to lift off the river and now hung as a mini cloud in the valley. Not long after the trail crossed a road and I headed east, walking the 0.8mi into town. I'm still not sure what the shortest acceptable distance to hitch is, but I didn't want to waste my hitching karma on such a short trip and then not have any when I needed it, so I just walked this morning.In West Cornwall I stopped by the outfitter's, replaced my depleted fuel can, and borrowed their wrench so that I could change out the tips of my trekking poles. After taking them off it was obvious that the one I thought had worn down was actually broken and the tip was rattling around inside instead of fastened to the end like it should've been. Either way the new tips resolved the issue and should be good to go on the rocky terrain coming up. I stopped in at the Country Store to get some breakfast and inside was delighted to overhear all the locals greeting eachother by name and inquiring about eachother's lives, a nice part about small town New England.I took care of some stuff with my lease (for when I get back home) and then ran into Maneater, who I hadn't expected to see for a while due to their zero. She greeted me when "what are you doing here?!" and I replied with "I walked! What are you doing here!?". Turns out that they got ride with Shaggy's family to a motel 0.1mi away from this store. We hung out and chatted for a while and met Nomad, a flipflopper who had started in MA and had always flipped to head back south. According to him, in the SOBO bubble ~500 had started from Katahdin but already ~200 had dropped out due to heavy rain and terrible bugs up north. We should run into them in the next couple hundred miles, so we'll see.I walked back to the trail and rock hopped across a brook before running into Mike ('15), one of the CT ridgerunners. He recommended the next overlook coming up while we chatted about the trail before I continued on. I will note how much the water had improved in CT. We're back into the hills and so most of the streams I see are crystal clear and cascading down rocky slopes, much better than the swamp water of NY/NJ. I came across the next overlook and found Molly there, who had leapfrogged me while I was in town. I joined her for lunch and we chatted about hiking for a bit before we both decided that we should probably get moving. She was planning on stopping at the next shelter, Pine Swamp shelter, which I didn't like the sound of (swamp = bugs) or the distance of, and so I was planning on going one more. I bade farewell and kept moving. The trail wound up and down, which I chose to interpret as it getting me back in shape for the upcoming hills and mountains of New England.I did a bit more light rock climbing up another lemon squeezer (another huge boulder split in half and another rock face that I had to climb). After this obstacle I put my new knee brace on, which I'll begrudgingly admit helps, but is uncomfortable and bulky which is probably going to cause me to wear it less than I should. I'm still on the lookout for a replacement.The trail descended and crossed Rt7 (again), and I decided to try to get to town for dinner at an Inn/restaurant before they closed, but no sooner had I made that decision than I ran into a Mulberry tree. Bar none, the best way to slow me down is fruit and sure enough I spent a good 15min picking and eating the berries from the branches, using my trekking pole to pull them into reach. Finally breaking myself away (ie, when all the low hanging fruit having been eaten) I continued along, walking along the Housatonic river (again). Eventually the trail emerged at a hydro electric plant, but I turned uphill and headed into town. Upon arriving I learned that the Inn is closed Mondays... sign... First the concession stand, now this... I'm beginning so see a pattern here... Mondays are not good days for town food. As a consolation prize I stopped at the package store and got a Yahoo (for now) and a Reds cider (for dinner). Back down to the river I walked past the hydro plant and uphill a bit to the dam which held the water for the plant at bay. Between the plant and the dam the river was only little more than a trickle over rocks which had been worn smooth from the water and now looked like a long series of water slides. Ugg, if I wasn't racing darkness to reach camp it would be great to stop and swim, but alas I was still 3mi away and there's no stealth camping allowed in CT. It was very pretty even though I didn't get to play in it.The last couple miles of trail for the day came with my last hill for the day, and about 1000ft of climbing later I reached the turnoff for camp, only to discover that it was 0.5 off trail and far downhill. Normally I'd try to avoid doing that kind of distance and elevation off trail, but tonight I was committed. I headed down and found a German couple who already had their camp setup. Not long after I arrived SlumberTime and Wolfie, who I had passed on the uphill, pulled into camp and we had a pleasant dinner chatting. My tent, still wet from this morning, had mostly dried out by the time night fell and so I left the fly's open for ventilation as I drifted off.