Thursday, August 8, 2019
It rained all night, at times very hard with thunder. It finally stopped about 6:00 a.m., so I got out of bed and broke down my wet camp.
I had changed into dry clothes the night before but had to change back into my wet hiking clothes. My shoes were still soaked as were my socks. It didn’t matter though because it started raining again as soon as I left Spruce Ledge Camp. It was about 8:00 a.m.
My plan was to do a half-day, or in hiker parlance, take a "nearo". It's a play on another hiker term, a "zero", which refers to a day in which you do zero miles, aka, a rest day. A nearo is close to a zero but you still get some miles in. I had been averaging about 11 miles/day for the first three days so it was time to do some rest and recovery.
Corliss Camp was my destination, just a scant 6.6 miles away.
The rain came down steady with intermittent downpours throughout the morning. Made for a sketchy hike at times. Lots of mud puddles, regular puddles, and slippery roots and rocks. No super-big climbs but it was mostly uphill and slow going.
The weather cleared up around 11:00 a.m. so that was good but the trail was akin to small streams, with water gushing down. Glad I was stopping early today.
I made it to Corliss Camp by 1:00 p.m. after a short but steep descent off of Butternut Mountain. Today was just about getting to the next camp. I knew I couldn’t make it to the next camp 8.1 miles away. One big day this week was enough. I proceeded to hang up my wet clothes, signed the guest book, and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.
I was soon joined by an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker named Butter. He decided to finish the Long Trail before heading back south to get back on the AT. The reason he could do that is because the AT coexists with Long Trail for the first 100 or so miles from the Massachusetts border up to Maine Junction near Rutland, VT. At that point, the AT veers east towards New Hampshire. Butter was having the time of his life on trail so he kept going north to add another 170+ miles to his 2,190-mile AT thru-hike. We were soon joined by a firefighter from Needham, MA who was only doing the Long Trail but had thru-hiked the AT last year. It was good to have some company and hear some trail tales.
The plan for tomorrow is to do 10.9 miles to get into Johnson for my first town stop. I already made my reservation earlier in the day and was looking forward to a hot shower, real food, and a comfortable bed after five days on the trail.
Total miles for the day: 6.6