We walked along the Housatonic, in what is one of my favorite sections of the whole trail.

A couple with a border collie mix named “Kitt” came by, and Tater was instantly smitten with him. She had hoped to see a dog in town today. The Trail provides.

We decided to cut into town early and avoid most of a giant hill that stood before. Having hiked the entire trail already, the alure of seeing a new neighborhood overruled the purist tendency to step every single mile of the trail.

We passed beautiful farms, one with a cooler of eggs for sale. In fact, we were on Old AT, faded blazes and signage still visible. The couple with Kitt found us again, this time offering us a ride into town in their little Nissan. We declined, and they seemed to love our decision. It was a lovely walk lined with chicory and shaggy brown cows, watching us sleepily as we passed.

We crossed under Cornwall Bridge and made for the Cornwall Country Market, a fine little boutique grocery Tater remembered from 2018. We promptly devoured sandwiches, while chatting with a local who pulled up on his Ducati.

A ski patrolman on Bromley, he completed his WEMT at Solo, where I did my WFR training. I probed him with questions about the more advanced course, which requires students to live on campus for more than a month. I had no idea hospital rotations were also part of training, which makes me want to sign up even more.

My Wilderness First Responder course was one of the best things I’ve ever pursued as a backpacker. Nine days of very intense training with medical, high angle rescue, and survival training. My class consisted of field guides, paddle guides, an EMT needing CEU’s and a retired police officer. I was one of three who did not work in the backcountry professionally.

This local, who’s name I didn’t catch, is headed to Nepal in a couple of months. He has completed the Annapurna Circuit, and is returning to summit a 22,000ft peak. The name escapes me.

Today was a planned town stop, and we made reservations at the Cornwall Inn. Mark the proprietor, was kind enough to pick us up.

We showered and spent the rest of the day alternating between the Inn’s pool and hot tub. It’s amazing how fast we moved back into the rhythm of town chores. Sink laundry, cook pot cleaning… A second shower.

We fell asleep watching Mean Girls, but not before Tater commented:

“This bed is so comfortable I don’t want to go to sleep. I just want to continue feeling the comfy all night.”

She didn’t last long. Neither did I.

“I just peed for the forth time dude!”  Getting excited about your friend’s urine and bowel movements is something that occurs when you’re hiking in 90 degree weather.  Both of us had experienced a loss of appetite to some degree, but Tater’s constant ingestion of water without need to pee, had us both a little worried.

In all reality, this was great news.  We were fully sweat-soaked by the midday sun.  Our third of such days thus far.

My cousin Ian and I had to bail off a short thru hike of the Foothills Trail in South Carolina due to the oppressive heat.  I should have been keeping a closer eye on his “in’s and out’s” and by the time I was it was too late.  We had been doing larger miles than we probably should have, and by day three we were both pretty cooked.

When Ian was still feeling terrible after an hour at a swimming hole, we told me he wanted to head home.  I’m so glad we made that call when he did, because little did we know at the time our egress was nine miles with 2700ft of elevation gain.  All this via a forest service road, where we had zero info on water sources. 

Thankfully Ian is a tough dude.  Thankfully too, our other cousins Will and Charlie, were more than happy to come get us.  It was a rough go though, one that has me vigilant.  Tater is extremely experienced too, and so we’ve been listening quite attentively to our bodies.

Today we met Frodo, Sam Wise, and Grass while ducking some rain at a shelter.  Two are Georgia Southern grads, and Grass has stepped away from his lawn care business to pursue the trail.  They’re typical young, bright-eyed, and virile thru hikers.  Nevertheless they expressed the typical vulnerabilities, asking us dozens of questions about the Whites and Maine, as soon as they learned we had seen them before. 

We took our time leaving after that long lunch break with the guys.  The weather abated and we capitalized on the lowered air temperature. 

We caught a gorgeous evening view off the side of Schaghticoke Mountain, where we met Richie Danger, an older thru from Richmond.  He has a remarkable resemblance in both tone and looks to Les Stroud.  He assured us it was a college nickname and was “quite insured” these days.

We continued on down St. John’s Ledges, which are a great preview of the White Mountains.  More like little arm floaties for an Olympic swimming lap.

There’s a lovely stretch of trail near the Housatonic River, and we made it there by six in the evening.  We passed a bald eagle on the far shore eating prey, and continued to able on slowly.

When we made camp we pitchd in the “besties share vesties” arrangement, a throwback to my friend Casey Jones who came up with the phrase.  Basically, our doors faced each other so we could converse bug free.

We slept like rocks. 

Birds woke me at five in the morning.  Five!  The sun was already cresting the surrounding hills, casting red hughes across my face.  I slept with both vestibules open last night, partially for ventilation, and partially because I lacked space to pitch them. 

One thing you get spoiled with when using a bivy, is that the footprint is body-sized.  If you can lay on a patch of dirt (or rock, or edge of a tent platform) you can setup there and sleep for the night.  The Gossamer Gear Two though, is a behemoth. 

What I assumed to be a camp full of thru-hikers when we arrived last night, was in fact a troop of scouts with a few parents.  They were the quietest boyscouts I’ve ever encountered, respectfully silent even as they packed up their pots and tents this morning. 

I had breakfast with the three parents and a thru-hiker named Santiago.  He told me his name was a reference to Hemmingway’s Santiago, from Old Man and The Sea.  

Tater slept in till 9am, as she’s still adjusting to Eastern Standard Time.  In the meantime I reorganized my pack, read the shelter log, and layed out my food to take inventory.  When she woke, she gave me these fashionable “Tater” braids:

The heat kicked both of our asses out of the gate, but the trail was so lovely and gentle for much of the day.  We crossed the boarder into Connecticut after a short detour off trail due to a damaged bridge.  A local on a bike gave us directions, but I must admit Tater is the better navigator.  

Around lunch we found a view with some fine sitting rocks, and realized to our dismay that both of our appetites were waning.  They should have been ramping up by now.

Tater made a call to home, and I checked Gaia and the guidebook for some place we could cool down.  The Housatonic was .4 straight down hill, and the mere thought lifted our spirits.  In 2016 I sat in this river for a full hour, cooling from what was then 100+ degree heat indexes day on end.

We found some fine shady rocks and sat submerged to our knees for the better part of an hour.  The river isn’t safe to drink from, and we found a couple of dead crayfish, perfectly intact but otherwise inanimate.  Nevertheless, a fly fisherman greeted us on his way back to town, excited to tell us he had never caught so many fish before.  Hopefully they were catch and release, the river is full of heavy metals!

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, though we did get some fantastic views off the side of Schaghticoke mountain.

While lounging we met a thru named Bumble Beast, who chatted with us for twenty minutes or more. 

At the nearby campsite we were delighted to find a strong, beautiful, and drinkable stream.  By dinner time we were both actually hungry and thirsty again, putting my mind to ease.

It takes time to settle into a long distance hike.  The mind and body eagerly protest what is in reality a total and complete upset of your typical daily life.  I overhead Tater’s mom say “be kind to yourself,” which is the antidote to every ailment of this transition period.  I’ve written that phrase in countless trail registers now, especially on the southern AT where so many are just starting out. 

Complicating the transition, the bugs have been horrendous.  I caught my first tick attempting to hide behind my knee tonight.  They always end up there for some reason, but my Tick Key and lighter made short work of him.  I was delighted that it even worked on a nyph, which this certainly was.  Being so near to the town Lyme, which the disease is named after, has Tater and I both at a heightened level of diligence. 

We’ve only a few days at most in Connecticut, then we’ll be on to Massachusetts.  New England is such a beautiful place. 

AT 2022 Day 1 5.7 miles

I arrived at Ian’s NYC apartment around 12:30p.  The short Uber from Laguardia was terrifying, as I realized that New York drivers in mass, are probably the scariest drivers in the world!

Ian, Tater’s brother, prepared a “triple decker” PB&J, with a bulging ziploc full of “train snacks” for her and I.  This is what love in snack form looks like: 

In Ian’s living room I emptied my $10 Goodwill suitcase, and set about the task of loading up my backpack.  Tater did the same and we were fully trail ready within fifteen minutes. 

Gorging on our “triple deckers,” we got a basic plan for the day, aiming to hike about six miles. 

Ian was kind enough to ride the subway with us all the way to Grand Central, where we sat and drank coffee waiting for our 3pm train to Pawling to arrive.  Soon it was time, and we bid our urban field guide farewell.  His presence and direction evaporated all the stress I normally feel in cities.  Like the rest of Tater’s family, I adore Ian’s calm, gentle demeanor. 

Our train ride was pretty uneventful, with a couple of our fellow passengers recognizing us as hikers and asking the typical questions.

“Holy shit we’re actually doing this!”  Made up a fair amount of the banter between Tater and I.  Both of us were still full of nerves as Google maps faithfully guided us along the seventeen stops.

When we made it to Pawling, a taxi pulled up and a hiker named Penguine offered us a ride.  A few minutes later we were standing outside of Native Landscapes, a hiker-friendly nursery.  Penguin went in to source a fuel can.  After seeing our first white blaze, Tater and I were literally bouncing with glee. All pre-hike stress disappeared instantly, as it always does, and we ran for the trail.

Within the first tenth of a mile, small furry forms came into view about twenty yards ahead. Two gorgeous kittens bounded out of the brush and chased each other up trail, before disappearing again.  We tried to coax them out with calls and promises of tuna, but they were gone.  Still, seeing them within the first ten minutes, we took their presence as a good omen.  I’ve never seen baby cats on the trail before. 

After remembering how to read the guidebook, and averting a very real fear that we had actually been walking south for the past hour, we laughed and filled our water at the first large stream we found.

The first mile of the trail was mainly farm fields, and we joyfully baked in the 90 degree heat, though the sun was reclining fast.

We rolled into Wiley Shelter a little after 8pm. Tater and I were probably heard for miles with our boisterous and loud city voices.  We pitched camp (my first time using the GG Two in the field) with practiced efficiency.  The occupants of the other twelve tents were already asleep when we arrived, though one man was finishing dinner. Tater and I communicated in whispers.

We made our way to the glorious luxury that is a picnic table and cooked dinner.  Hers being Spanish rice, mine being some yakisoba instant noodles I bought as emergency COVID stores, long expired. 

Bugs drove us to eat in our respective tents as soon as our stoves were cooled.  I forgot how utterly spacious and civil a tent is compared to tarp and bivy.  I feel like I’m in a dorm room with crap scattered everywhere right now.

It’s one thing to go on a weekend backpacking trip, but living on a trail for months on end requires toiletries, chargers, and other miscellania simply unneeded for a two day jaunt.  Those tiny (often featherweight) items take up space and mental bandwidth.  You need to keep track of everything in your pack, and simply lumping these things into “electronics bag” “nightly bag” and “toiletry bag” helps tremendously. 

It’ll take a few days and maybe a couple weeks to get back into a rhythm.  In 2019 my “nightly bag” consisted of everything I wanted next to me overnight.  Earbuds, contact solution, case, hand sanitizer, along with my external battery with charge cables for my phone and headlamp.

You can tell a hikers experience level by how organized they stay in camp and while cooking.  Like all thru hikers, Tater and I can pitch tents and feed ourselves in well under fifteen minutes. 

It feels so good to be on trail again.  So far we feel great.  Ya know, six miles in and all… Till next time!