Scott's Ultra Challenge - Day 6

Day 6 – Dedicated to Darryl Redfern, Pat Ecklund, and Marie Budrow
Start: West Cornwall Rd in Sharon, CT
Low point: 393 ft Skiff Mtn Rd in Kent, CT
High point: 1,260 ft Surdham Mtn in Sharon, CT
End: River Rd in Kent, CT
Distance: 14.1 miles

My feet were still swollen and numb when I woke up. The only shoes I could fit my feet into were my hiking boots which meant I had to try and put up 30 miles on Saturday in hiking boots which didn’t look positive to complete my trek. I asked for help from my son Derek in the form of a partner to help me make it. I really liked having Derek hike together with me today and having a companion for a day after 5 days of mostly being alone. He probably quickly got sick and tired of my bantering on about everything as we hiked briskly but I had a lot to say after so many days of solitude. The pace was not fast enough and after about 7 miles it was clear that we were going to need about 12 hours of hiking to get to the end and that put us into the dark near 9pm. I didn’t want that and was starting to think about how and when to stop for the day…

We were really cruising on the flats along the Housatonic River but my feet were cramping up and sore. We stopped to filter some water for lunch and met two guys who were bird watching. They had a cool modified iPod Touch that had a speaker attached to it. They could select a bird by name or picture and it would screech out the bird’s call in order to try and attract it. A short ways down the trail we saw a bald eagle fishing on the Housatonic River. Never before have I seen one in the wild here in CT. I sure wish I had an opportunity to get a picture before he flew away! I’ll bet the bird watchers would have loved to see this sight!

In the end we called it quits at only 14.1 miles which was quite early in the day… the finish line would have to wait until Sunday. We decided that instead of trying to start climbing St John’s Ledges, we would walk out River Rd to Route 341 in Kent, have Jan pick us up and take us home. Since we had no overnight gear packed the only option was to go home for the night and drive back the next day which felt like even more of a cheapening of my trek but there was no alternative, I had no change of clothes, I had no camping equipment.

I hope my feet are better tomorrow and I can run out the final day in style!