On the Road Again; It was so hot you could fry an…

Hello everyone from the Trail! It is so exciting to be able to say/write that. I have completed my first week on the trail. Thank you to Willie Nelson for the first intro – it feels great to be back on the trail and I hope Willie is doing okay as I heard he had to get off the road last week. And thank you to Dave Matthews Band for the second intro – you probably actually couldn’t fry an egg on the AT, but boy it sure was hot. And, yes, I do want to ‘Stay’ and keep wasting my time on the trail – despite the mid-90s heat and humidity.  Though, I wouldn’t object to some cooler temps ahead! I’m not sure how blogging from the trail will work, so let’s see where this goes and evolves. (The feature picture at the top of this post is the sunrise from my tent window at Riga Shelter.)

Day 1 was a great start. We stayed at Rocky River Inn in New Milford, the night before, and Laura dropped Nick and I off at the trail by 8:00AM. There was lots of fun talking and hiking and excitement was definitely in the air! Day 2 was where the heat really kicked in which resulted in the low and slow miles the next few days, some swimming in the Housatonic River, and an early day at a great campsite – Silver Hill Campsite. As a family, we backpacked and stayed at this campsite 25 years or so ago. It’s set right on a hilltop with a pavilion, wooden swing, great views, and thankfully some breezes to offset some of the heat. Day 3 was more of the same, again, low and slow miles – just not as awesome a campsite as Silver Hill. But, there was a decent water source which allowed for some makeshift showers from our water bladders! (Silver Hill had no water – you had to hike up the last few miles with all your water.) Day 4 saw me escaping off the trail for an unplanned stop that had a curious thing called ‘air conditioning’! Not looking for another night in my tent with temps in the upper 90s, I did some looking on the ‘FarOut’ app (this is an app that has trail guides for long-distance trails including maps, waypoints, and crowd-sourced comments) and saw there was a B&B near Rt 7, it welcomed hikers, offered a hiker discount, and would pick you up! Refreshed from air conditioning, showers, food, drinks, cat-petting (Terry, the owner of the B&B had two great cats – Jagger and Simon), I did my biggest day of the trip yet – 14.3 miles including two decent climbs up Mt Prospect and Lions Head. Day 6 was a short day, up and over Bear Mt (a mountain we have climbed as a family many times) and down an old woods road at the base to meet Laura who was picking me up for a night off trail – from where I am writing this entry!

Who needs flowers – saw this amazing fungus bouquet on day 5! 

Some thoughts from the first week

It was really great to start this adventure with my son Nick! We had not backpacked together since 2003 – 21 years ago when he was 13 and Dylan, my other son, was 16. That was our last great backpacking adventure before we fully lost them, in a good way, to their own lives. That trip was 2 weeks on the AT from Delaware Water Gap on the PA/NJ line to the CT line – so it was kind of fitting that we started off where we left off all those years ago! 

Nick and I overlooking Kent, CT. 

If you have been reading my posts and/or know me, you may have gotten a sense that I am a bit of a planner. Well, I messed up – I didn’t plan for mid to upper-90s and high humidity in mid-June. Oh well – it’s all good. The heat just meant taking it a little slower, lower miles, earlier starts on the trail to beat the sun, and lots of water – like 8-10 liters or more per day. And swimming, and an unexpected stay at a B&B. Funny thing about the B&B – it’s so great there is a neighborhood bear who has been trying to stay there and last week successfully entered through a window! No bears though while I was there! 

Pavillion at Silver Hill Campsite.

Nick in his hammock – my tent next door! 

I’ve met some thru-hikers already. A few younger folks who quickly blew by me as they are doing big miles. A flip-flopper like me who started a couple of months ago in Virginia. And, a NOBO who started in March and is also blogging for The Trek! (I have been reading his entries since he started!) 

Kind of an important sign – passed this on day 3. And, that’s just the first leg of this flip-flip!

Trail magic on night one! If you have not heard of trail magic – it is something in which people do nice things for hikers – yea, kind of weird people just being nice to each other, maybe we should try this more? (Trail magic might be food, drinks, rides, taking your trash, or any other number of things.) So, it’s night one, I’m laying in my tent around 8:00 PM. There are 8-9 people staying at the shelter. Out of nowhere, a person hikes into the shelter area and says he has a box of ice cream sandwiches and asks if anyone wants one! He went around each tent to make sure everyone got one. Wow – it was awesome and refreshing. Whitecap, a 2023 thru-hiker and current trail maintainer did the same the next day and offered us Kind Bars after a very friendly conversation along the trail. 

It’s felt great to be back on the trail. But, it’s funny – my 60-year-old legs don’t seem to be responding as quickly as my 30 and 40-year-old legs used to – I’m not sure what is going on with that? But, my 60-year-old mind still loves the process of walking, measuring life by miles and water sources, seeing what’s around the next bend or highpoint, and all the magic that long-distance backpacking entails. When I get back on the trail today from the hotel we are staying at in Pittsfield, I will quickly enter Massachusetts – my home state and my second state on this AT thru-hike. 

Friendly advice on the trail. If I had to guess, I’d say Whitecap is responsible for this sign! 

A final thought. I was climbing up Lions Head with about 2 miles to go to Riga Shelter, it was hot, and it started to rain. (The rain was welcome to cool things off, the lightning not so much.) I put on my pack cover, got out my umbrella and continued on. I took my time going up – it was a hard climb and I didn’t want to get to the exposed top of Lions Head with lightning still in the area. During one of these stops I’m sitting on a rock on the trail under my umbrella, it’s downpouring, there’s thunder and lightning, and I just sat there and thought ‘this is awesome!’ 

See you down the road………………………….