Day 99 - Thursday, July 8, 2021

Another early morning wake up call at 5 am. It makes a big difference getting on the trail when it’s 5-10° cooler.  Today’s forecast has actually improved where it’s not expected to rain until mid-late afternoon. Hoping to finish hiking and not get caught in the rain. Then it’s going to rain all night and into tomorrow… we’re going to get wet 😖. 

Today we continued hiking from Fawn Hill Road, (1479.8 NoBo) to US 7, parking, bridge over Housatonic River (1493.2 NoBo) for a total of  13.4 miles. 

We got on the trail at 7:30 am, temperature was 68° and the skies  were overcast with low cloud cover. 





AT/Connecticut Public Land Boundary. 





Break time…





Views from Hang Glider. And I forgot my hang glider 😖



Gypsy moth hatch.



The effects of gypsy moth caterpillars and their devastation of the forest canopy. 









Connecticut’s smaller version of the Lemon Squeezer in New York. 

Around 11 am the cloud cover was increasing and we heard thunder in the distance. Checking the forecast and radar, the rain is now expected around  noon with periods of heavy thunderstorms and lightning… we are going to get wet 😖. The rain  started as scheduled, now the weatherman is right, and it’s intensity strengthened very quickly. 



Turtle Power only brought his pack cover… 🤔.



I brought my poncho and I’m still not liking this at all… 

We ran into most of the Thru-hikers we have seen the last couple days. All survived the thunderstorms last night. We spoke with a thru-hiker from Canada, her trail name was “Unique”, she has had enough. The past several  days of rain was the straw that broke the camels back… she had over 1500 miles completed. This were the solitude of a solo hiker will consume you.  I’m hoping she will change her mind and stick it out! 



This is “Somewhere” who is from Tennessee. She had quite the ingenious setup with her umbrella. She referred to herself as a L.A.S.H. (Long A*# Section Hiker) 😱. I gave her a heads up that her umbrella was not going to fit thru the Lemon Squeezer 😂. 




We came to Old Sharon Road just north of Guinea Brook and this trail warning. We went down and checked the streams’ water level and determined it was indeed impassable due to the recent thunderstorms. We took the recommended 1.2 mile bypass. We could have saved over a mile if we could have crossed the brook 😖.


It rained the remainder of the hike with lightning strikes mostly in the distance… nothing too close 🙄. We finally finished at 3:50 pm looking like a couple drowned rats. I wish I felt that good 😡. 

The weather forecast is for rain throughout the night continuing till about 1 pm tomorrow. We were considering taking a zero but tomorrow’s hike is only going to be 9+ miles so we will still have enough time to do it after the rain stops. So that’s the plan… time will tell if the weather will cooperate with us?


Till next time... Happy Hiking  🥾 

😋


“You gotta have passion for life and passion for something that you're going to get up and do,".    

                                Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart 



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