Scott's Ultra Challenge - Day 5

Day 5 – Dedicated to Avi Ben Stella and Lisa O’Malley
Start: Riga Lean-to in Salisbury, CT
Low point: 540 ft Dugway Rd in Salisbury, CT
High point: 1,738 ft Lionshead Mtn in Sharon, CT
End: West Cornwall Rd in Sharon, CT
Distance: 21.1 miles

Good morning… what a horrible night sleeping on the hard deck in the lean-to last night. To make things worse, there were branches and acorns falling on the corrugated steel roof of the lean-to all night. The acorns sounded like ball peen hammers rapping on the roof so sleep was hard to come by. The temp overnight dipped below 40 and my sleeping bag and liner rated for 46 degrees together left me cold and shivering all night even in my thermals. The lean-to faced the wind and would have offered a great view on a warm, clear summer night but last night it just tortured me. Early this morning the rain came so I’ll be starting my run today in the cold rain. Bummer, but it had to come… I couldn’t expect clear days for a whole week! I got up shivering still and without any oatmeal or tea in my pack, I’m heating water to drink to warm my insides. Breakfast will come later in the town of Salisbury, CT when I hit the local grocery store for more supplies. Good ol’ CT!

Today is special because I am meeting my family tonight to camp and I can’t wait to see them! Some nights I just texted with them and other nights I briefly spoke to them but I sure do miss them right now! Time to get out there on the trail and knock off another 21 miles…

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What a nasty weather day today was! I ran for miles in a light rain before arriving at the market in Salisbury where I bought some fresh fruit and a muffin for breakfast and a nice turkey wrap for lunch. As I exited the market two rather stylish women walking in sneered at me all soaking wet and packing food into my backpack. As they walked past one said to the other quite loudly, “I’d never want to be one of those AT hikers on a day like today!” Hee, hee… little do they realize that we love this stuff! I’ll trade dressing up and putting on airs any day for a day communing with nature. Even bad days like today are sent by God to cleans and nourish the earth… the complexity of making water collect in the atmosphere and then fall from the sky is something to marvel at!

By 9am it was a steady rain but it didn’t bother me anymore. I was disappointed by the AT reroute since it was all on roads but in reality there is no other way to temporarily reroute the AT so it made sense. The gathering rain just hit me harder and more directly on the open road than under a dense forest canopy. I ate lunch on Belter’s Bump and you know you’re thoroughly soaked when you sit out in the rain eating your lunch on a big old rock without even attempting to shield yourself from the rain. A NOBO thru hiker passed and stopped to talk for a few minutes. His trail name is Turtleback and he had tried to hunker down in his tent for the day and put up a zero but the steady rain began filling the tent with water so he decided that if he was to get wet he might as well add on some miles in the process. As I looked at him with his dark green poncho draped over him and his backpack, I instantly knew how he’d gotten the name Turtleback  Unfortunately he was not going to make Katahdin by December and would have to wait until spring to finish up.

The heavy rains now had been going strong for over 4 hours and when I got to Falls Village the water falls at Great Falls were fantastic! Boy oh boy was the Housatonic coming over the falls furiously! I paid too much attention to the falls and got off onto a side trail that was no longer the AT. I could see where the AT was above me but there was a muddy embankment separating us, and being rather lazy at this point, I didn’t want to back track ¼ mile so I decided to climb this steep muddy embankment and save time. I got about ¾ of the way up and was sinking 4-5 inches into this very odd, loose kind of sandy mud when I started sliding back down so I grabbed the trunk of a small tree to steady myself and the tree started moving with me! I realized that the whole side of embankment had let go and I was sliding down a mudslide! I rode it about 20 feet to the bottom and decided I wasn’t going to be getting up that embankment today so with very muddy legs now, I headed back around like I should have in the first place. Had I followed the rules of “Leave No Trace” and stayed on the path, that would have never happened!

It was pouring buckets now, I was so wet… and muddy… that I didn’t care where I stepped anymore. I didn’t attempt to hop over puddles because even my feet in my Gore-Tex running shoes were soaked. The Gore-Tex at this point served to keep the water in and create nice individual pools for my feet! And then it got worse… a fierce thunder and lightening storm came, and being outdoors, I had to start thinking about safety. The next lean-to on the AT, Pine Swamp Brook, was the one I was headed to for the night so I wanted to get there fast and get out of the weather but I had a number of mountain summits to go over in between and I did NOT want to be on one with lightening striking because a few were exposed summits and I had no desire to be the tallest object on a mountain top during a storm.

As I approached the summit of each mountain I would wait for the thunder cell to pass and then I’d sprint up and over the mountain during quiet periods of the storm. I know they say to wait 30 minutes between thunder claps but I didn’t have that sort of time so I’d wait about 10 and then make a break for it. As I stood still in between each time I started realizing how bad my feet were today and grudgingly I called Jan and told her that I needed to stay indoors tonight to give my body a chance to recover. I knew the kids would be disappointed at not camping outside but I was hurting and feeling badly and if I was to finish this run I needed to take care of my body right now.

I got here to the lean-to hours before Jan and the kids are scheduled to meet me here so I called her and told her I’d meet them down at the road so they didn’t have to hike a mile in the rain to meet me and then turn around and hike a mile back out to get to the car and drive to the motel.

My feet are so sore! I was very cold when I got here so I changed into some dry clothes to keep warm while waiting and I even draped my sleeping bag over me to keep warm. I still have no blisters or hot spots on my feet but they hurt in many different places and I just discovered that two toes on my right foot are 100% numb from the ball of my foot up to the tips. I guess that is why I have been stumbling more on the rocks lately because I can’t use those toes for balance or feel the contour of the rocks like I am used to. I sure hope they come back afterwards. My feet are clearly swollen too… looking at them out of the shoes they don’t have the same lean look to them so when I spoke to Jan earlier I asked her to bring both a dry pair of trail running shoes for tomorrow AND my big old hiking boot in case I can’t get my feet into trail running shoes.

The end of the day today has been unsettling, I feel mortal again… like Tuesday. At least today my mind is willing, just my body is spent after 120 miles in the last 5 days. I need to get out of the cold and rain because I’m feeling much worse physically and I got soaked to the bone by the driving rain all day. I feel as if I’m cheapening my trek by not camping out tonight, but I know I need some rest badly and have not been getting it on the hard ground and wooden lean-to floors.

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Boy oh boy was it great to see my family’s smiling faces and get hugs and kisses from them! We checked into a ratty little motel close to the trailhead for the night. It felt wonderful to take a shower for the first time in 5 days! I don’t think I have ever gone that long before! Then we had dinner at the Wandering Moose Café where I ate a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs. When we got back to the room I passed out big time sitting upright I was so tired and never really got my gear situated for the next day when Derek and I were going to attempt to put up 30 miles for the day and finish my trek in six days instead of the planned seven. I felt the need to get this done sooner than later with the worsening condition of my feet.