Appalachian Trail - Day 095 - Bull's Covered Bridge to Cesar Brook Campsite

Day: 095

Date: Friday, 28 July 2023

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

Finish:  Cesar Brook Campsite (AT Mile 1488.0)

Daily Kilometres:  36.4 (Ascent 4984', Descent 4590')

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

Total Kilometres:  2489.5

Weather:  Hot, humid and sunny.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  McDonalds breakfast sandwiches & hash browns

  Lunch:  Trail mix, ice-creams

  Dinner:  Italian sub

Aches:  Dave - left ankle and knee giving him problems; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  There was a very pleasant stretch of easy walking on a sun-dappled trail alongside the fast-flowing Housatonic River during the afternoon when the mosquitoes were absent.

Lowlight:  The last four miles were not fun.  We were already later than we had hoped because of a distance miscalculation Dave made but decided to continue on to our target campsite even though we knew we would be late.  We didn't know how late!  Firstly, there was a technical and slow climb away from the river up and over a mountain that offered no views.  Then, after crossing a road, we descended to Guinea Brook which was running fast and at least knee-deep at its shallowest points.  There was a sign suggesting a roadwalk alternative that added a mile (why wasn't there a similar sign back at the road crossing?). At the end of a long day, we didn't fancy a difficult ford so we did the road walk.  Then, when we got back on the trail, there was more slow technical climbing followed by a gnarly long detour around another section of trail that had been washed away.  It was getting late and there were no alternative campsites so we just kept going, eventually donning our headlights when it got too dark to see around 8:30pm.  We finally reached our campsite at 8:45pm.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

The day started well.  Rob drove us from New Haven back to Bull's Covered Bridge and the trail with a stop along the way to get breakfast.  We, including Rob who was going to join us for a few hours, were hiking by 7:45am on an already very warm and humid morning.

Soon we were on the long ascent of Mt Schaghticoke.  Early on, Julie and Rob saw a large unconcerned black bear amble across the trail in front of them, which provided a bit of excitement.  At the top of the climb there were good views in a few places, but also lots of slow gnarly rocky trail that had Dave lagging behind.

Eventually, we descended to a busy road where there was a sign saying a bridge ahead had been damaged by flood water and recommending a roadwalk detour.  This was near the point where Rob was leaving us to walk back to his car via a road along the river but, before he left, he pointed out that the detour would take us close to the village of Kent where we might get an ice-cream.

We took the roadwalk detour and then detoured from that by a quarter mile to buy ice-creams and cold drinks which we ate and drank on a shady spot next to the gas station.

Returning to the detour, we had a long and pretty walk along the Housatonic River before beginning our last four miles of the day which became a bit of a nightmare (see above).

Having arrived so late we set up camp, washed and went to bed.  Dave ate his lunch roll for dinner, but Julie didn't want anything.  Hopefully we'll get to stop earlier tomorrow.