Friday, September 21, is a great day because he has crossed into CT and has about 160 miles under his belt. He will be stopping off in Kent, CT, to resupply at the IGA grocery store and continue on as far as he can get. He didn't expect the trail to be so rocky and so many ups and downs but it is what it is. He experiences trail magic on Friday as he came off the trail onto the road into Kent. A family was stopped across the road and Lyle took the map over to them and verified which direction he needed to go to get to Kent about a mile down the road. They offered to take him there because they needed to get some things for a picnic. While he was in the store the mom came over and said that they would take him back to the trail. What a wonderful thing to do...it saived Lyle a lot of time and extra hiking. He finally gets to the campsite along 10 Mile River and is there by himself. This makes me a bit nervous as I've become comfortable with the knowledge that he has company every night. There were no night time visitors and Lyle has a great night of sleep.
Saturday, September 22, was another beautiful day with lots of hikers on the trail. Lyle calls them "weekenders" so he is seeing a combination of south bounders, section hikers and weekenders. Most are willing to stop and chat for a few minutes. One of the folks was an astronomer who goes hiking and gazing in Alaska every year. He is quite the outdoorsman and has hiked in many places. In fact when he heard Lyle was from Appleton, he said his best friend was from Appleton. He then went on to tell the story of how they were hiking on Mt. Hood and two of his party--including his best friend--were killed in an avalanche 12 years ago. We remember hearing about that in the local news...very tragic and sad story. Saturday is an 18 mile day which also included the most dangerous down he has had on the AT. It was a huge rock slide which has turned into a recreation area. The AT goes right down the rock slide which is called St. John's Ledge. He ended up backing down the 900 ft. and while he was descending there were people repelling right next to him. Everyone in camp that night talked about this obstacle and all Lyle talked with were as scared as he was--didn't matter if they had come down it or were expecting to climb up it the next day.
It rained in the night so Lyle was so glad he was able to "wedge" himself into the shelter. It was such a long day he was the last person in camp that night and got the last little slice of real estate in the shelter. He didn't want to set up his tent because it was going to rain overnight. And boy did it rain! It was a wet start to Sunday but at least he didn't have to take down a wet tent.
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