Day 52: Glastenbury Mountain

Start: Congdon Shelter (AT mi 1609.6). Stop: Glastenbury Mountain Firetower (AT mi 1624.3). Today’s miles: 14.7 miles. Total AT mileage: 599.6 miles

I slept in again today. I didn’t get up until after 7am and it felt so amazing. I love that I’m sleeping better, it truly is a game changer.

I packed and ate breakfast like every other morning, and left camp before FarOut and Sauce. The miles went slowly for the first half of the day. At 10 am I was starving and on top of a “hill” so I decided to sit down, enjoy a snack, and update the blog. Having service up there was perfect for getting the pictures to upload. It really does take forever sometimes.

Sauce and FarOut caught up to me while I was sitting there. They stopped for a little snack too, and then carried on. I didn’t see them again until I made it to camp. The climbs were tough, but I seemed to be handling them better. There was one steep downhill that jarred my knees pretty bad, but that’s nothing new. Once I got to the bottom, I crossed the street and a man, Steve, gave me a Gatorade. He is a shuttle driver for hikers, and offers trail magic when he has it. The couple he was dropping off was some folks I hadn’t met before, but she told me she just came from urgent care and they told her she had scabies. Welp. I’m quite thankful my stupid thigh sweat rash isn’t scabies. I’ll quit complaining now. Lol

I thanked Steve profusely for the drink, and talked to him a bit while I chugged it. He had a sticker on his car that said “Hawk Support Crew.” He’s one of the many followers of Hawk and happens to set up trail magic when he’s around.. how dang cool is that?!

When I left Steve and couple, the trail went over a pretty creek on a bridge, and then right up the next mountain. It was smoother than the downhill across the street though, and I didn’t stop nearly as much as I have been on climbs before now. Once at the top, the trail meandered down and around before doing the same thing again. It went like this for quite some time. Up, down, up, over and around, up.. but it was enjoyable. Even with the muggy overcast day.

I ate lunch at a shelter and quickly left afterwards. There was a dude hanging out with his dog, which looked very skinny, and the dude was sleeping in the shelter in his sleeping bag-it was high 70s today and so muggy that I could wring out my bandana from all the sweat it was absorbing. I’m sure the guy was fine, but I felt uncomfortable, so I didn’t stick around.
Once I left, it was back to the same ol thing. The trail reminded me of a jungle today, and the wind kept whipping through the trees.. making me think a storm was brewing. So far, still no rain. I’ll call it a success.

I got to the shelter we were aiming for and filtered water and collected another 2L to take with me up the mountain a bit further. FarOut had messaged me when they got there that the tent sites were crap and they were heading north to the firetower to camp. When I was filtering my water, Lilo and Sweeps said that’s what they and Wizard and Killer were doing, too.

I hauled myself up the rest of the mountain (a whole 0.3 miles, but with an added 8 pounds in water weight, it wasn’t a quick 0.3..) and spotted the firetower! I was expecting a bald, exposed mountaintop, but to my surprise it’s covered with pines.. I ended up setting my tent up right under the tower, as it was the flattest spot not directly on top of Sauce and FarOut lol.

After setting up and cussing the massive amount of bugs (gnats, flies, mosquitos), I climbed the 7 fights of stairs of the firetower. Holy cow was it gorgeous up there!? Mountain views were seen at every single turn, a full 360 of stunning. Plus the wind was still nuts so there were no bugs! An added bonus.

I came down and cooked my dinner and filtered my other 2L of water for tomorrow. The bugs were driving me so insane that I ended up carrying my bowl of pasta sides half way back up the firetower.. just to have some room to breathe and attempt to eat. We made our plan for the next couple of days, including a big mile day tomorrow to be able to get into town early-ish on Monday. I’m not sure why I’m so excited about the idea of a hotel, since I’ve been sleeping well.. I think it’s more of the guarantee of closed doors without bugs maybe?

Either way, I’m ready to get this hard day out of the way so I can take it easy on Monday. Oh, also: update on Towelie-he’s starting to feel some better and is going to zero again tomorrow and then attempt some miles. I appreciate y’all for the prayers, I know he does, too.

With that, I’m rolling over and planning to sleep to the sounds of the wind howling and pretend it’s killing off all the bugs for tomorrow 🙂 goodnight!