Monday, September 16, 2013

Day 3: A Walk in the Woods

Dscn4620September 6: It did get cold overnight—cold enough to form frost in front of the shelter. I stayed plenty warm in my sleeping bag, even going so far as to open it in the middle of the night to vent a bit—I was too warm! But in the morning, plenty of other hikers were complaining about the cold. I hoped this meant that the leaves would start changing colors with a little more gusto than they’d been showing so far. =)

 

I left the shelter at the same time Sheryl did, so we walked together a bit during the morning. She kept insisting she was slow and I should go on ahead, but the truth was that my right knee was still bothering me and I wasn’t moving as fast as people seemed to expect from me. However, my knee was feeling a bit better than it felt yesterday which was a good sign. It wasn’t getting worse! Throughout the day, the pain would increase, but it did that the day before as well. A good night’s sleep, though, and all was good again. So overall, the pain had decreased, but it was still affecting my walk and slowing me down.

 

We only hiked about 1/3 of a mile before reaching the Glastenbury Mountain fire tower, a tall structure that towered over the surrounding trees. Of course, I immediately wanted to climb to the top of it and dropped my pack to do so. Sheryl lingered back explaining she was scared of heights. I encouraged her to go anyhow, though, and eventually she did go up just enough to clear the trees and actually see a view. The day was absolutely beautiful and it seemed like we could see a hundred miles in every direction. It was also the first time I had a clear, unobstructed 360 degree view around the area I hiked. The few viewpoints along the trail never allowed for 360 degree views. They need to build more of these fire towers!

 

Originally, I planned to stop at the Story Spring Shelter, a rather short day at just under 9 miles. I arrived early in the afternoon, though, and still felt plenty strong to keep going. I decided to push on to make a shorter day tomorrow which was on a longer side originally.

 

So I stopped for a second lunch at the Story Spring Shelter, but then kept on going to Black Brook Bridge where I found Tom and John already camped. I wasn’t entirely surprised to find them here—they had been talking about maybe pushing on beyond Story Spring Shelter as well and it was a great place to camp.

 

After dinner, they headed off to sleep, and I pulled out my Kindle to read. It had been a nice, relatively non-eventful day. =)

 

Dscn4622
View from the Glastenbury Mountain fire tower.
Fire towers are pretty much the only way to get a view
above all the trees!

 

Dscn4634
Sheryl hiking the trail ahead of me. This kind of
terrain really slowed me down due to my hurting knee!

 

Dscn4649
Lunch #1 was held at the Kid Gore Shelter. There are a
few hikers who stopped here for lunch.

 

Dscn4667

 

Dscn4678

 

Dscn4690
This is a beaver pond, held up by the beaver dam that
you can see in this photo. I’m just amazed at the
size and depth of the dams these beavers have made.
They’re quite impressive!

 

Dscn4704
The Story Spring Shelter was my original destination
for the night, but I only stopped here for lunch #2 before
continuing on.

 

Dscn4727
Instead, I decided to camp by Black Brook Bridge. =)

 

Dscn4728
Tom and John in camp.

3 comments:

Anne Bonny said...

I can only imagine what the view would look like from the fire tower once fall really kicks in full force!

Anonymous said...

hope your knee heals soon... i hiked Appalachian Gap and Camel's Hump sections last week..trail is really steep with huge boulders you have to scramble up and down. my favorite part of the trail though!

california bluefrog

Papercrafts by Cindyellen said...

we took my sister, eeyoremama, thru the App Gap once. She took one look at one of the scrambles and said, "you have got to be sh88ting me. That is not a trail." Yes. Yes, it is. . .