Day 1 On the AT Again...
Assuming that all goes well this should be my last push on the Appalachian Trail. By the middle of August I will be at Mount Katahdin in Baxter state park, Maine. I can't believe it; I'm on my first day and I'm already under 700 miles to go.
On the way up we spotted this beautiful Connecticut state park, Kent Falls State Park, just outside of Kent, Connecticut. You could just see the waterfall from the road so of course we had to stop.
Being New England there are also lots of covered bridges. Mike and I were both so glad we didn't try to bring the van because if you look back at the first photograph it would never have made it under.
Saying goodbye and getting on the trail is always tough. Giving Mike that last hug and heading up the trail is bad enough. But it was much tougher this time because I couldn't explain to Luna why I wasn't getting back in the car. Mike said that she pouted all the way home and is still not her normal happy self.
I'm lucky that Connecticut is not a terribly hilly state. At least I'll get a little bit of time to get my trail legs in before I hit Vermont. This is the first outlook that I got to and to be really honest the only one that I saw all day. Can't complain though because it was supposed to rain and it didn't!
Plus there are other things to look at like this waterfall. It seems like there are going to be a lot of them in this part of the trail.
Just short of mid game I got to an interesting rock climb. These aren't all that common on the trail and it does make the walking interesting. Here's a view from the bottom of the climb…
Here I am on the top. It wasn't all that long but it is a bit challenging to squeeze your enormous backpack through the small space.
Sometimes when I'm out of the woods for a while I forget how quiet they are. I was sitting down and having a snack when I heard something going on behind me. I turned around expecting something quite large but it was just this millipede! He was making quite a ruckus going through the leaf litter. There's so many of these Decomposers on the trail. I love watching them climb on things and rutch around in the dirt.
I'm staying in an on-trail camping area tonight. The nice thing is that it's free... The downside is that the amenities are a bit lacking. Even in the woods people can't put the lid down.
Now the upside is that there is a Bear Box. When you get to the end of your day you want nothing less than to have to hang your food. When I saw this guy I was ecstatic. I get to eat and then crawl into my tent and sleep. If you didn't follow along last time you wouldn't know that I see a lot of bears so I'm always very cautious and put my food where it belongs.
Well here's my set-up for tonight. So far I'm all alone and I haven't seen too many northbound hikers yet. I do tend to get into camp earlier than most people so that I can get to sleep early, but so far so good. I like to stay alone:)
