NY, CT, and MA… it’s getting steeper

After some wonderfully flat and easy states, the trail is starting to get steeper and more rugged again, and New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have been the perfect preparation for that. Each state has increased in steepness and difficulty, and it feels like good preparation for the harder parts of the trail that Vermont and New Hampshire hold.

New York

I was thrilled to see the NYC skyline almost as soon as I started NY. It made it clear how far I have come on this journey. I can’t believe that I started in Georgia and now I’m seeing NYC.

New York didn’t just bring the views but it brought the rocks. Not small, annoying rocks like PA did, but seemingly endless rock slabs. These rocks provided great views over the treeline and made for some surprisingly nice and entertaining hiking. The rocks did have some sketchy and scrambly moments at times but brought a fun new element to the trail.

What New York brought that I did not enjoy was the heat. I had three consecutive days of 90-degree temperatures with no wind. And I was sweating so much that each piece of clothing that I had stayed wet for days on end. To top things off, the days of heat were finally broken by several days of rain, continuing the streak of everything being wet.

Connecticut

When New York brought the heat, Connecticut brought the bugs. After the fiasco of everything being wet for days on end, the next challenge that the trail threw out was a seemingly endless supply of mosquitoes.

For much of the trail, bugs had never been a concern for me. I’d hardly had a single bug bite for the first three months. But once I got into CT, the bugs were seemingly endless. I hadn’t even been carrying bug spray yet, so I was completely defenseless.

Within my first day of Connecticut, I was covered in so many mosquito bites that my legs were more red than not. But despite the bugs, the hiking in CT was tame at least.

Massachusetts

This is the state where things start to get real again. First, I finally had bug spray. So fighting the mental battle against the mosquitoes is no longer a challenge. But trail has certainly turned into more of a challenge.

Massachusetts has been the steepest state in some time, with the almost endless climb of Mt. Greylock to cap it off. I feel like this state is helping me get my legs back under me a bit after being lulled to sleep after the several last flat states.

Regardless of the states that came before or the condition that I’m in, I know that some states with some legit mountains are coming up, and I am absolutely stoked to be able to tackle them in the coming weeks!