Day 137

Weather:
Light rain showers in the morning. Partly Cloudy afternoon. Thunder & Hail storms in the evening.

Today's Hike:
Iron Bridge/Falls Village to Rega Lean-To - 11.6 miles

After packing up camp this morning we walk 20 yards into the Toymaker Cafe with toothbrushes in hand. After using the restroom and brushing our teeth we started our day off with a nice cup of coffee and a home cooked breakfast. Fantastic.

By 9am we were headed back out to the trail, but first we made a pit stop at a "Hydro-shower", a cold "shower" that consisted of a shower head on the outside of a building and no shower stall/curtain. The girls stopped to wash off all visible body parts; then we were on our way....kind of. We made it about a mile down the trail when we crossed a series of waterfalls near the hydro-dam. We took our packs off to play in the water and enjoy the scenery before the morning rain showers started. Once the rain came it didn't take long for us to start some serious hiking.

The first part of the day was a two-mile climb up. It wasn't hard, just long and mosquito infested. Spraying on deet has certainly become a common daily task. I reached the summit of our first climb within an hour. It was rather uneventful until we head down the hill and reached the grand view; an open view of rolling hills and patches of trees scattered in the distance. In the mist of early morning haze it really was a "grand view."

By noon we were at the road crossing for Salisbury, CT, and we headed into town to resupply and grab lunch. Deli sandwiches and a cold coke. What could be better?

We had a few hiker friends staying the night in town, and Lil' Dipper offered to let us take showers in her room before we headed back to the trail for the evening. We all quickly packed up and headed over to her room. An hour and a half later we were all freshly showered and watching Dragonheart in a cozy room. It was hard to leave, but at 5:15pm we were headed back out to finish off our day.

Thunder started rolling in overhead after about 30 minutes of being back out, and within an hour rain and dime sized hail started coming down. We raced to the Rega Lean-To, 1.2 miles short of our original destination. Rocket and I made it just in time to miss the golf ball sized hail. Muster insisted on being a marter and wait at the shelter turn off for Grommet and Storm as if they couldn't find their way to the shelter themselves. really? At some point you have to have some self-preservation. Whatever. I wasn't in it.

By 7:30pm the second storm had passed through and we raced to put our tents up. Everything was soaked. We were soaked, our packs were soaked, and despite having a pack liner and pack cover, just about everything in our packs were soaked. It sucked. Our only goal for the rest of the night was to warm and stay warm. Not the easiest task, but by 10pm we were all sound asleep.