Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 49 – A quick stop in Kent
13th September 2023
Belters campsite (702)- Mt Aglo Shelter (724.3)
Daily miles: 22.3
Total miles: 732.2
It rained in the night, earlier than forecast. I had my earplugs in and I slept so well.
Toe photographing me packing up from her tent
Packing up in the rain isn’t fun. I started packing up around 6am - Lemonhope had started packing at 5:30am - and by 6:30am the rain had increased and all the tents were wet. Toe asked Lemonhope why he was sat in the rain. He said he was sitting, then it rained.
The whole camp was in this beautiful orange glow - must have been where the sun was rising and the cloud was dispersing the light; impossible to capture with my phone but it was so pretty.
I went to use the privy before I left – because I had eaten a whole tub of hummus yesterday – and it was by far the best privy on trail! I probably would have been a little more pleasant if it hadn’t been raining and the seat had been dry, but it was great all the same.
Best toilet on the AT
It was so dark when I started hiking that I almost needed to get my headlamp out. It rained solidly for a couple of hours. Yesterday the forecast said it would rain all day and a couple of inches. I was happy in my rain skirt and umbrella. My feet were going to be wet regardless so I walked straight through the puddles that were building on the trail. The one good thing about these Hoka Speedgoats is that they are so high you can walk through some puddles without getting wet feet!
Misty and dark morning
Pyro blazed past me on an uphill, then I saw him a bit later taking a break by a river. It had stopped raining now and it looked promising for the rest of the day and the forecast had changed. I didn’t stop because as soon as the rain stopped the bugs were back and I didn’t think that was very fair; surely the rain would have drowned them all. But no. The mosquitoes were as blood thirsty as ever.
I hiked on a little and came to a creek that was slightly less buggy so sat to have a break and eat some crisps and cheese. Pyro passed me again.
Cloud rolling in
And rolling out again
Cheese and chips. The best snack.
This morning was a series of ups and downs. Nothing too bad but the ups slowed me down and the downs slowed me down too because it was so slippy.
Around midday Lemonhope caught up to me and we hiked together for a bit. We came to a river crossing, which we thought was the slightly dodgy crossing of the day but it was a relatively easy rock hop. The next part was uphill so I told Lemonhope to go ahead of me. I tried to keep up but he smelt quite strong. We all stink, and we stink worse after being wet this morning; my backpack straps smell so bad I don’t want to touch them. I caught up to him again on the downhill. When we came to the road crossing there was a sign suggesting a detour around the next river crossing.
I followed Lemonhope’s lead on this one. If I had been by myself I probably would have just gone and seen if I could have crossed the stream, but we could hear the stream and we didn’t want to go all the way down and find it uncrossable and have to go back up the hill. Lemonhope was also on the strugglebus a bit today. He was struggling with wet feet and the humidity.
So we did the road walk. The first half was a downhill gravel road… fine. The next half was a busy paved road and wasn’t such a great experience. We walked in the shoulder and I’ve never seen so many worms! All in various stages of mutilation. A lot of them were blended into the road, completely flat, others were partly squashed and some were still whole. As Lemonhope was walking in front of me the worm debris was flicking up from the back of his shoes. It was starting to smell really funky too so we were glad to get back on the trail. It probably added about a mile onto the day.
The road walk alternate route
We had one more climb and one more descent to do before the trail got flat for a few miles. Lemonhope decided to take a quick break before the climb and I carried on.
It had become a lot more humid since the rain stopped and the sweat was a lot, but at least it was slightly cooler than it has been.
The flat section was wonderful. Once I got past the fields with all the mosquitoes landing on me it was a nice walk alongside the Housatonic River. I could walk and almost look up and take my eyes off the trail
Some nice trail
The Housatonic River
The trail goes through that hole
And through the fields
A lovely flat wide trail alongside the river
I came to the shelter where Lemonhope had said he was going to stop to eat lunch. I almost didn’t stop there but I decided I needed to air out my feet because they were feeling a bit sore.
It was a very short side trail and I sat to eat some food and completely forgot about airing my feet. A short while later I heard Toe’s voice so I shouted out so they definitely stopped. It was only when Lemonhope took off his shoes that I thought to take off mine. Wrinkly, as expected, but not that bad. Once they dry out they will be ok. Lemonhope was suffering with sores across the tops of his toes - which weirdly is what happened to my feet in 2018 in this section.
Airing out my soggy feet
I had put the insoles back in my shoes this morning for the first time in 18 days. I figured they might have stretched enough by now and I laced them as loosely as possible. With the pains I was experiencing yesterday I thought it might help and I think it has helped a bit, I haven’t had any pain yet anyway.
I was looking at the trail ahead and I saw some comments from a ridge runner saying that there was a bridge out and there was an official road walk as a diversion approved by the ATC the Appalachian Trail Conservancy). The crossing can be anywhere from ankle to thigh deep.
This cut off about 2 miles of distance from the trail but we had already walked more distance this morning anyway. Cal and May Queen also did the road walk earlier. Toe crossed the river and said it was about mid calf deep.
We have all done our fair share of river crossings at this point and with our feet just about drying out we discussed it and all decided to do the road walk together. So we ended up staying at the shelter for 1.5 hours, I was there for about 2 hours, because the road walk would be faster so there was no sense of urgency.
Lunch break
We hiked out at 4pm and the first part was official trail, alongside the river and down a gravel road. Then instead of turning off back into the forest we continued along the gravel road. It was a nice walk because we could walk side by side instead of in a line. The gravel road eventually turned into a paved road and we were looking at the map and saw we were only about half a mile from the town of Kent and it was 5:15pm. We had less than a mile to get to the shelter so we decided to detour into town to get a drink and maybe some food! No one took a lot of convincing.
Kent is a fancy town with a fancy school there which costs about $50k a year to go to. This is high school, not a college. We accidentally walked into the school grounds as we made a wrong turn at the bridge. One kid asked if we were hikers and was completely in awe that we were hiking the Appalachian trail, he thought it was very cool. Then another group of kids passed and one said “no they aren’t homeless they are hiking the AT”… “what’s the AT?” was the reply.
Taking a wrong turn and walking into a high school
We stopped at a gas station; I got a Ginger Ale, a Twix ice cream and some more fruit snacks for tomorrow. The rest of the crew were going to buy a beer, and one for Pyro who we assumed was already at the shelter, but the gas station didn’t sell beer.
Hikers making Kent look messy
Gas station treats
Toe called Pyro who was already at the shelter and explained that we had come to Kent and were going to go and sit somewhere to have a beer so he ran, literally ran, into town.
We went to a restaurant and they all had their beer and I had another Ginger Ale (obsessed!). We also ordered food; I had the fish tacos and what an excellent choice that was. Soft flour tortilla with crispy battered fish, pickled onion and mango chutney. It is up there with the Banh Mi I had in Bethel, Maine as the best food on trail so far.
This was a great decision.
Dinner in Kent
They were delicious
We left the restaurant around 7:15pm and Cal called into the gas station and got a pint of ice cream. We walked the rest of the road walk, half way putting our headlamps on because it was getting dark, and then hiker-trained it to the shelter which was 0.3 of a mile uphill. I put myself at the back. One, in case I couldn’t keep up and two because I was desperate for a wee and didn’t know if I would make it there without stopping to go.
A little night road walk
But I was just about able to keep up, even with Cal who was in front of me eating a pint of ice cream as he was hiking uphill as I was huffing and puffing behind him trying to keep up!
Night time hiker train to the shelter
I got really sweaty going up that hill too! When we got there the shelter was quite small and I would have stayed in it if it had been raining but Lemonhope and May Queen and I decided to pitch our tents. My fly was wet but if I pitched it it might dry out over night.
I was super hot and sweaty and I normally sleep in my shorts but today I’ve decided to take them off to air out my skin because it’s getting all those red bumps on which I got on the AT in ‘18. I also had a bit of a nasty bite on my leg which had developed a head on which I burst at lunch time. So I think they could just do with some air.
Home for the night
Now it’s 9:30pm and as I’ve been writing this it’s cooled off a lot and I’m a little chilly. I’m actually a little bit worried about the temperature as we head further south and whether I will be warm enough. But that’s a problem for another day.
