Day 124
Location: Red Pine Plantation, CT
Miles hiked today: 6.3
Miles from Springer: 1,460
Miles to Katahdin: 716.2
Elevation: 425′
Did I mention how nice Kent is? It has several great places to eat, and no less than two book stores plus a book sale at the library. However, stuff here is very expensive, and you get the impression that they do not like hikers here.
Y2K was planning to go to get his foot checked out today, and I was hiking on. But first, there are the many distractions of town. We ate at a cafe that took way too long, and it was around 10 a.m. before we got out of there. There was a lady at the church who offered to drive Y2K to the hospital in the next town. After he left, I was sitting outside the outfitter store talking with two people who run a film festival in town. There was a man and his son who just came out of the church yard sale with a portable playstation they paid .20 cents for, and a Nintendo 64 they had paid $5.00 for. The kid seemed really happy.
I was all packed and ready to go when Papa Sarge, Sprite and Freckles arrived. I decided to wait so I could eat with them, which turned out to be several hours. So that is how I found myself leaving town around 5 p.m., my plans for big miles gone.
As I reached the top of the mountain, I came across a woman named Baggins, who seemed to be camped under a log. I had met Baggins yesterday in town, and she is one of the more fascinating people I have met on the trail. I would guess her age to be approaching 70, and she is very small. She says she can only hike about 5 miles a day, yet she has done over 1200 miles of the trail. She took the name Baggins because she feels like Bilbo on his journey. I am amazed because I am not sure I would still be hiking if I could only do 5 miles a day. She has been doing this a lot longer than I have, that is for sure. I was also amazed at her campsite, which was no more than a tiny space under a leaning log. She was in her sleeping bag, leaning against her pack as a pillow. The spot seemed like a prime place for slugs, centipedes, ants, and other critters. As we were only a mile from the shelter, I asked her why she didn’t continue on, as it was still light.
She said she would never make it off the ledges before dark. I did not know what the ledges were nor had I looked at the profile for this section closely. I figured she knew what she was doing though and pushed on. I soon found out that she was very wise not to push on.
St. John’s Ledges are some rocks that form a nice lookout, but it is the descent from there that is so tricky. Several times I had to toss my poles below and slide down some big rock on my rear. It took me so much longer to get down than I thought it would, that it was dark when I reached the bottom. I was glad that Baggins had stopped where she did.
The next section was a five mile river walk along the Housatonic, which is one of the few river walks along the entire trail. Prefering to enjoy it during the day time, I spotted a nice level field right next to the trail and set up camp. It was only after I had my tent set up that I noticed the entire field was one huge bed of poison ivy. It would now be all over the bottom of my tent, and anything else that touched it. Figuring this was a problem for later, I soon fell fast asleep.
