Date: 2009-08-13
From: Stewart Hollow Shelter

To: Salisbury, CT
Miles today: 26.4
Weather: haze

The rest of my posts will now have a format of bulleted sentences without much elaboration, as I will have limited time to update my blog. The more I stretch into the New England region, the more limited internet access will be. -        Was on the trail in the early morning; raining very hard. Trail turned into complete mud puddle. Few large climbs, but nothing too bad. Making great time. Saw a ¢thru-hiker¢ that seemed entirely out of place. He was carrying a ripped backpack, with a grocery bag to the side, wearing swimming trunks and had a trench coat on. Go figure.-        Stopped in at Pine Swamp Brook Lean-to. Met Rising Kate (section hiker) and saw Rabbit and Running Clear again. The latter is a late-30¢s couple who I had met between Port Clinton and Palmerton. Very friendly people. We shared stories about Switzerland (they had brought with them wonderful Lindt Swiss chocolate). Dah Wah He, 10 X 10 and two SOBO¢s arrived soon after.-        Kept pushing on. Hiked through the regular route of US 7; the Housatonic River Bridge was being re-constructed and there was only one lane of traffic going through, so they re-routed the entire Appalachian Trail in this section, but I was told that I could hike over the bridge, so I did. It was a tight squeeze with oncoming traffic and I risked getting hit by cars, but I didn¢t think that anyone wanted to mess with a nasty, dirty, homeless hiker like myself. -        I hiked on to Water Street, directly along the Housatonic River ¢ a beautiful and peaceful section of the trail and arrived at the hydroelectric plant, where I took an outdoor shower, while wearing my shorts. It was a cold shower and someone had placed shampoo and conditioner there for thru-hikers to use. Ahh, it felt so incredibly good to be clean again. -        All of my clothing was entirely drenched, so I just sat back and ate some food, while enjoying being clean. I made some small talk with three locals who came to fish at the plant and then pushed on. I made it to the Great Falls, a beautiful waterfall in Falls Village that was barreling hundreds and thousands of gallons of water down its rocky embankment. Stunning sight, really. -        I made the big climb over Prospect Mountain at 1,475 ft. (the highest in a long time) and initially decided to hike to the Limestone Spring Lean-to. I had heard that it was a very steep embankment, but I figured that some of my friends would be there, so I started off. When I was .3 miles into the side trail, the blue blazes just disappeared and I was forced to retreat and keep on walking. So, I filled up my water bottles and just pushed on, doing some night-hiking. It was very peaceful at night and I was able to see some beautiful views of the mountains at late dusk. -        There was one point where I saw six eyes staring at me up in a few trees. I stopped for a while and threw a piece of wood to see if it would move so that I could determine what type of animal it was. At first, I thought that it was an owl, but it turned out to be raccoons. Sure enough, throwing pieces of wood at the raccoons turned out to be a lifesaver because as I was walking down the trail, I heard this huge cracking of a tree and an explosion into the ground. I ran in the other direction, knowing that it was a tree, but not knowing how big the tree was. Hell, I didn¢t want it to fall on me! It turned out that the tree fell directly across the Appalachian Trail. Who knows, if I hadn¢t thrown wood at the raccoons, I may have been crushed. -        I pushed on to about 12 mile before US 44, the main road that takes you into Salisbury. Here I cowboy camped and spent the night on a wet ground. I made my cous cous for dinner and fell fast asleep.