Appalachian Trail - Day 092 - Telephone Pioneers Shelter to Bull's Covered Bridge

Day: 092

Date: Tuesday, 25 July 2023

Start:  Telephone Pioneer Shelter (AT Mile 1452.4)

Finish:  Bull's Covered Bridge (AT Mile 1466.4)

Daily Kilometres:  25.5  (Ascent 2113', Descent 2697')

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  2453.1

Weather:  Very warm, humid and mostly sunny with a thunderstorm in the afternoon.

Accommodation:  Friend's apartment in New Haven

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg, cheese & ham/sausage rolls, ice-creams 

  Lunch:  Pastries/Turkey & cheese sandwich 

  Dinner:  Beef stew, rice & veges.

Aches:  Dave - very tired; Julie - mosquito bites.

Highlight:  Friend, Rob, drove up from New Haven, 1.5 hours away, to pick us up from Bull's Bridge and take us back to his apartment for two days of R&R.

Lowlight:  None really (though the mosquitoes were still bad in places today).

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We packed up, fighting off mosquitoes, and were hiking by 6:30am on an already warm and humid morning.  We had a relatively easy day in front of us, starting with a downhill hike and a boardwalk across a marsh to a main road, three miles away, from where we left the trail and roadwalked three quarters of a mile to a deli for breakfast.  Just before the trail met the road it crossed a railway line where there was actually an Appalachian Trail station from where you could catch a train to New York City.

At the deli we had some scrumptious breakfast rolls which we ate outside while chatting to a young thru-hiker we have seen a number of times along the way.  Very pleasant.

After walking back to the trail, we had a mile or so of open meadow walking which was a nice change but warm in the sun.  Then it was back into the forest with the mosquitoes and a few hills.  Dave was complaining of fatigue, but it was hard to know whether it was just the knowledge that a couple of days off beckoned at the end of the day and he couldn't wait to get there but still had about ten miles to go.

There were few views, but the leaf-littered forest and rock ledges were very pretty and, one foot in front of the other, we reached a shelter and took a break, sharing the picnic table there with the same young thru-hiker we had shared the breakfast table.

The last five miles started with a trail relocation that required roadwalking to get around a washed out bridge, though word was that the river ford wasn't too difficult.  We agreed that Dave would do the roadwalk, while Julie would follow the old AT and we would meet where the trails converged about two miles further along.  There were things to see on both routes and the river ford was even easier than we had heard.

After one more climb, the trail descended to Tenmile River and soon passed the two-thirds mark of our journey.  We followed the river to its confluence with the much larger Housatonic River before following that upstream to Bull's Covered Bridge.  The river was raging and impressive.

After crossing the covered bridge we reached the store on the other side where we had arranged to meet Rob (see above).  We bought some food and drink and sat outside with a couple of other thru-hikers while we waited.  The sky was starting to look ominous with thunder audible in the distance and the first spots of rain began falling as Rob arrived.  The heavens then opened and it rained, sometimes torrentlally, for the entire 90-minute journey to New Haven where we will stay, courtesy of Rob, for the next two days and three nights.