Today was great, but tough. Where to begin ...
The New England Trail (NET) is basically a vertical line from Long Island Sound in Connecticut to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. But there's one spur that juts to the northeast at Broomstick Ledges, about 18 miles north of the Sound. It winds to the Connecticut River. I'm not sure yet if you need to hike the spur to officially complete a thru-hike, so we decided to hike it to be safe. Plus, we have the time and interest.
So yesterday's hike was rated easy, and it was. The only difficult part was that my hip bursitis flared up yesterday, so walking wasn't too comfortable. Today, however, I felt great. Our itinerary called for hiking 21.6 miles from the spur's end at the Connecticut River to Mount Pisgah. The weather forecast was for temps to hit the mid-80s, with a fair amount of humidity. Not ideal, but doable.
Stubs and I got on the trail at 8:30 a.m. We were immediately faced with several re-routes due to power line construction. The re-route wasn't difficult to follow, but you had to pay attention.
In addition to two re-routes for the power line, the trail was just a heck of a lot tougher than yesterday. Connecticut is a rocky state, and the trail went up and down a lot of huge rocks. In several places we had to scooch on our butts or take some time to figure out how to get down these giant rocks. But the scenery was gorgeous!
At one point we had a road walk and were excited to make up some time. NOT. The road went uphill for a mile. Between the strenuous terrain and the humidity (more than the heat), it was a very tiring day. But a good one.
Unfortunately, the end wasn't so great. Without getting into too many details, we needed to pick up one car from our starting point and drop the other for tomorrow. Because of the terrain, we finished late and it was dark by the time we were driving to drop one car for tomorrow.
The map indicated a parking lot by some railroad tracks, but there wasn't a traditional parking lot. We knew from speaking with some people today that some of the "parking" spaces marked on the maps are simply places where you can pull over on the side of the road and park. But since we are driving a rental car and Parks' car -- not our own -- we didn't feel good leaving one car by these railroad tracks in the dark without being sure it was legal. So we ended up driving both cars back to our hotel, which was only 15 minutes away.
Except I missed our exit, so we ended up going way out of our way. Sigh. Oh, and I discovered I lost my hiking umbrella today, which was a gift from my kids. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow. :(
Oh well. That's hiking, and that's life. All's good!
Snowshoe and Stubs
Map Miles: 21.6
Map Miles to Date: 39.6
iPhone Miles: 19.4
iPhone Miles to Date: 38.2
Steps: 55,040
Steps to Date: 96,968
Flights Walked: 65
Flights to Date: 311
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