Today was insanely hot and humid. It felt like an oven out here on the trail, making even the relative short climbs of Connecticut tough. Fatigue was setting in quickly today. There are definitely some steep chutes here, though, in particular a descent near something called St. John’s Ledges. I’m not sure if I’ve ever sweated that much in my entire life. To make things even more pleasant, the mosquitos and gnats are just out of control here. Yuck.

On the positive side, a good 4 miles or so cruised along by the Housatonic River, which was super flat and easy hiking.

Trail with the Housatonic River in the background

We decided to call it a day in the early afternoon because it was so hot, there are a plethora of small towns around here with places to stay, it was predicted to storm pretty hard (it did), and because we can do whatever we feel like doing on any given day (one of the best things about doing this). We road walked the mile or so into the tiny town of Cornwall Bridge and got a room at a small motel called The Hitching Post. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The shower (I took mine very, very cold) was amazing.

Vital stats for Wednesday, July 23rd :
Miles hiked today – 15.3
Mood – much better after a nice cold shower
Physical state – good
Smell – a lot better than this morning
Song stuck in my head – Lost In My Mind by The Head And The Heart

We had something rustling around last night near the tarp. I was in a bit of a coma, so I didn’t react much, but Trippy heard it. It went away though, so nothing really came of it. However, as we hiked away from the lake in the morning, we saw the biggest bear we’ve seen to date (#12) lumber across the trail. He just kind of sauntered along at his pace and didn’t care about us. For fear of mauling, I didn’t get any good pictures. We wondered if he was our nighttime neighbor, though. Yikes.

Anyway, here is the lake.

Nuclear Lake

The weather was really hot and sweaty today. We passed by the Appalachian Trail stop on the metro North NYC train. You can ride it all the way to Grand Central. I don’t think we were dressed appropriately for Manhattan.

Appalachian Trail train station

One cool thing we hiked by today was the Dover Oak, considered the largest and probably oldest tree on the AT at over 300 years. It’s right off a road, so it’s not in the nicest setting (like the Keffer oak back in Virginia), but it was awesome nonetheless.

Dover Oak

Throughout the day, we hiked into Connecticut, then briefly back into New York, then back into CT for good. The trail does this, we were not being indecisive about what direction to go in. We hiked past the Ten Mile River and hung out there for a while because it was a nice spot that wasn’t too buggy.

Ten Mile River

We camped a tenth of a mile or so from the (final) NY – CT border near a little stream. If it weren’t for the insane droves of bugs, it would be a really ideal spot.

Vital stats for Tuesday, July 22nd :
Milestone – finished NY, now in CT (9 down, 5 to go)
Miles hiked today – 20
Mood – morale was a bit low today with the sweltering heat and tons of bugs. We think we’re fighting off our “Virginia blues” late, since we had PA to look forward to through VA. However, it feels great to check another state off the list.
Physical state – tired from the heat, but fine otherwise
Smell – giant vat of sauerkraut mixed with ammonia
Song stuck in my head – Cardiac Arrest by Bad Suns