Appalachian Trail Section Hike #6: CT Route 341 (Kent) to CT Route 41 (Salisbury)
Dates: 10/13/05 – 10/15/05
Participants: Tim & Jeff
Thursday October 13th
Once again, heavy rain and flooding was forecast on the weekend we reserved for a hike. Flood warnings were posted for the Housatonic River valley due to a week’s worth of rain in the region. Tim and I spoke on Thursday morning and he made the call to stick with the original plan and adjust it as necessary based on the weather. I quickly finished packing, fueled the truck and hit the highway at 09:00.
Tim reached Kent before I did and I found him just as he was finishing lunch. Our goal for the day was a quick 7.0 miles to the first shelter. Based on my arrival time, we decided that it would be best to slack-pack the first 5.7 miles. After dropping Tim’s car at the gate on the River Road, we returned to CT 341 and set off northbound at 14:20. Just before the Skiff Mountain Road crossing, we met up with a southbound hiker. He seemed a bit dazed by the experience of hiking nine straight days in the rain but was able to assure us that the trail through to Jug End Road in Massachusetts was passable.
The trail climbing Glacier Rock
We made it to Tim’s car just past 17:00 and quickly loaded up to reposition the vehicles for Friday’s hike. Tim’s car was left at the Mountainside Café in Falls Village and we drove my truck back to the River Road gate with a stop in Kent for a lasagna dinner. Hey… we were going to have to hike the last 1.3 miles in the dark anyway. Why eat dehydrated Italian when fresh food is available? It only took 30 minutes of night hiking to reach the Stewart Hollow Brook Lean-to and we found it clean, dry and empty. Both of us enjoyed listening to music before the evening’s rain created its own sounds on the shelter’s tin roof. I tossed and turned for a while but eventually fell fast asleep.
Friday, October 14th
My watch alarm went off at 05:25 and both of us agreed to take a little more time to wake up. The rains had stopped and only a fine mist was falling. We packed up and headed north along the west bank of the Housatonic at 06:33, using headlamps for the first 20 minutes. Towards the end of the 2.5-mile flat river walk, a large deer bolted across a field and we stopped for a few pictures. We had been expecting to hike in the rain all day so the tapering mist was a pleasant surprise.
Based on our initial rate, we projected to reach the Pine Swamp Brook Lean-to at 12:30 for a lunch stop. However, we were temporarily stymied at the Guinea Brook just past Route 4. First, we lost the blazes. When we found them again, they led directly across the raging waters with no bridge or visible way across. The guidebook lists an alternate route during high water flows but I failed to copy that information onto my summary sheet. Tim opted to remove his boots and wade across. I made a terrible decision to look for another way across that didn’t require me to remove my boots. Just upstream from where Tim made his crossing, I found a large tree that connecting one bank to the other. It was solid so I slowly began inching my way across the wet and moldy bark. One misstep would have dropped me into the creek from a height of 6 – 8 feet. About 2/3 of the way across, I experienced a small slip and had to fight to regain my balance. Immediately afterwards, my right leg began shaking uncontrollably and I thought I was done for. Somehow, I managed to keep moving until I was past the water on the far side of the creek. I thought of jumping off but figured it would be safer to keep going until the drop wasn’t as high. Just then, a branch on the tree gave way and I fell forward into a couple of smaller live trees and was suspended above ground. Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt (or so I thought) and was able to get my feet back on the ground. I walked downstream to find Tim re-lacing his boots. He had gone nad-deep during his crossing but still made the right decision. I vowed NEVER to try to cross a raging stream on a tree ever again.
An attractive mountain stream
I was shook up to the point where it took me a while to get back into my hiking rhythm. Tim got out in front of me and kept pushing for the lunch shelter. I checked my progress and realized that I wasn’t going to make it to Pine Swamp Brook until after 13:00. When I reached West Cornwall Road, I thought for a minute about eating lunch right there. But the thought of making a climb right after lunch didn’t appeal to me and I began the final big climb of the day.
Then the rains came. The kind of rain that would have made Noah laugh and say “See? I told you so!” I cursed and moaned my way up the trail constantly looking for the shelter sign or the blue-blazed side trail. Almost simultaneously, I saw the sign as well as Tim’s hiking poles. He had left them at the trail intersection as a highly visible waypoint. It was 13:20. Tim was just finishing his lunch and was ready to find water. After I unpacked and removed my drenched jacket, shirt and hat, we took the filter and the empty bottles and found the water source below the shelter. Once we were back at the shelter, I settled in to eat my lunch while urging Tim to head straight for the Mountainside Café and our cabin. Since I was out of the rain, I tried my cell phone and was able to make a few calls to check in at home as well as to see if Mike and Shannon were still going to join us for the rest of the weekend. I guzzled a pint of Gatorade and devoured my salmon & mayo wrap along with a handful of peanut M&M’s. At 14:30, I finished stowing everything into my pack and set out to complete the remaining 7.0 miles to our rental cabin. I couldn’t risk exposing my digital camera to the deluge so I don’t have any pictures to help describe the flooded trail.
One of the deals I made with Tim over lunch was that he could meet me with his car when I made it to the Route 7 road crossing. I wanted to throw my pack into his trunk and hike the last mile without the weight. He must have flown over those last seven miles because he had time to check into the cabin and take a quick shower before meeting me on the bridge over the Housatonic. I followed the AT up to the intersection with the Mohawk Trail, which then led directly to the Café. At 18:20, I trudged into cabin #3 and placed my sopping wet clothes in the sink while I took the best damn hot shower in recent memory.
Clean and relatively dry, I walked over to the Café (in the rain) and met Tim for dinner. The service was agonizingly slow and somewhat inept. We stuffed ourselves on soup and salad and ended up leaving half of our entrees on the plate. The next task was to pick up my truck from the River Road in Kent. I was a little worried that my truck might be inaccessible due to flooding but we retrieved it without incident. After fueling up and buying our mandatory lottery tickets, I returned to Falls Village and began sorting through my gear to make sure I was at least partially prepared for tomorrow’s hike. The beds were surprisingly comfortable and I drifted off to much-needed sleep.
Saturday, October 15th
I heard Tim get up before 06:00 but chose to roll over and go back to sleep. He turned on the T.V. later to give me a not-so-subtle hint that it was 07:30 and time to get up. I got dressed and started packing up for the next phase of the hike. We had come to the conclusion that it was going to be damn tough to complete the original 50.3 miles that I had planned based on my injuries and general fatigue from yesterday’s hike.
We hit the Café for breakfast and the service was much more efficient than the previous night. With full bellies, we packed up, checked out, and shuttled the vehicles for one more slack-pack hike. We dropped my truck off at the CT Route 41 trailhead in Salisbury and returned to Falls Village to begin at the Mohawk Trail intersection.
Today’s hike did not get off to an auspicious start. The trail was supposed to veer into the woods for a bit before crossing the Warren Turnpike and heading down to the Housatonic River. There was a sign on a telephone pole stating that the trail through the woods was closed due to a railroad accident. Tim and I decided that the sign must be weeks old and that the trail was surely open by now. Well, we were wrong. The white blazes led directly to the remains of a derailment complete with a damaged rail car and a 
spilled load of lumber. Then the blazes disappeared. The map showed the trail crossing the tracks but we could find no sign of it. Knowing that the trail eventually led downhill towards the river, we followed a power-line clear cut back to the road where we had started. While studying our maps, a local guy stopped and showed us how to get back on track. We ended up taking a longer and more difficult route than if we would have simply followed the road. So much for passing all of the blazes…
The Housatonic below Great Falls
After that escapade, it was like a walk in the park for the next mile. The trail followed the river and was handicapped-accessible. Then it was a short road walk past the hydroelectric plant and across an old iron bridge. A local woman stopped as I crossed the bridge and told me that the water level had been within inches of the bridge decking earlier in the week. That would have been an exciting time to be hiking! We re-entered the woods on the far side of the bridge and started uphill towards the roar of Great Falls. There weren’t any viewpoints to fully witness the raw power of these falls but I did take a few pictures in an attempt to capture their magnitude.
Rand’s View
We passed a trio of day hikers just before starting our last big climb of the hike. It wasn’t an overly long or steep climb but we still struggled even without packs. At the summit of Prospect Mountain, I looked behind me and saw something that had been missing all weekend – the sun! A half-mile later, we found more good news. We arrived at a landmark that showed we were much further along that we thought. My mental outlook immediately improved and I felt stronger on each of the remaining climbs. I stopped for pictures at Rand’s View, the Giant’s Thumb and Billy’s View. Rand’s View is listed as the best panorama on the CT portion of the AT. There was evidence of a campsite there and I couldn’t fault someone for wanting to enjoy the scenery longer than the minute I had to spare.
The descent from the plateau known as the Barrack Matiff was steeper than it appeared on the profile map. I was thankful to be going down without a pack instead of cursing my way up under a full load. We arrived at CT Route 44 and followed it southward towards the town of Salisbury. We did have one last poke in the eye as we crossed a flooded field – the water was just deeper than the tops of our boots. Unfazed, we soldiered on and reached the parking area at 13:33, just a few minutes over four hours. After one last trip back to Falls Village, I dropped off Tim at his car and headed west to find the Taconic Parkway. Even with a short stop I made it home by 19:00.
Mileage Summary – 7.0 miles on Thursday, 16.5 miles on Friday, and 9.9 miles on Saturday. Total AT miles: 33.4. Cumulative AT miles: 205.9.
Trail Summary – Lots of slippery rocks and roots due to the recent rainfall.
Hiker Count – One Southbounder on Thursday, none on Friday (in the rain) and three day-hikers on Saturday. We owned the trail!
Wildlife Count – Turkey and deer and a red eft.
Blister Count – The new boots prevented the blisters on the right heel. Hurray! But I still got a blister on the inside of my right big toe. Not as bad as before though… The fall from the log over Guinea Brook left me with some type of injury to my ribs that took over a week to heal.
Lessons learned – When are we going to learn that two out of shape hikers can’t hit the trail and pound out consecutive big-mile days? We had a good hike on Friday but there is no way I could have cranked out 18 miles on Saturday.