April 2 – 21, 2022
My first National Scenic Trail thru-hike! Also, my first thru-hike without my daughters. The beginning of the next chapter of my life.
My first day was a short one. I’d planned a hotel stay right before hitting trail, and my original start date was April 4. However, when I looked more closely at the map, I realized it made more sense to officially begin on April 2, since the trail goes toward my hotel. So I did an entire 2.5 miles for my first day, then stepped off trail and continued walking toward my hotel and will now take a zero. 😊 Serious miles begin on April 4.
The southern terminus of the NET begins less than a mile from the Guilford train station. I arrived at the station midday and walked to the ocean. Rectangular blue blazes lead the way along the poles and trees (the trail goes through the Guilford Station).
There’s a little green park close to the very beginning of the trail. A kiosk with the NET map stands by the parking area.
From here, it was back to the train station, and then a walk through coastal suburbia and through the quaint town of Guilford. Blue blazes are on poles and trees. I felt a little odd hiking among all the Saturday casual walkers and shoppers, but people were nice, and no one gave me the fish eye. I actually got lost at one point, since a set of blue blazes diverged from the trail shown on FarOut (the app formerly known as Guthooks), but a quick check of the paper map set me straight.
There’s some road walking without the benefit of sidewalks, but I made it without getting run over, so that’s good.
I ended my trail day at the intersection of Route 1 and Tanner Marsh Road. I left trail here to walk to my hotel, where I am staying until Monday morning. On Monday I’ll resume and start putting in serious miles.
I’m meeting Apple Pie and Greenleaf at a campground Monday night. It’ll be great to see them; Apple Pie just finished the 4700-mile North Country Trail and is soon headed to the Natchez Trace Trail and the Ice Age Trail – when she is finished those, she’ll have finished all 11 National Scenic Trails. Apple Pie is a nice person. She and her husband are the real deal, they hike because they want to, not because they want to puff themselves up. It’ll be nice to cross paths and share a campground – one of us is soon finished the NSTs, and the other is just beginning.
April 4, 2022 – about 15 miles. Tanner Marsh Road to Rockland Preserve Tentsite
So happy to be on trail!
My day began with a walk along country roads with beautiful farms and houses, then turned onto proper trail through the woods. After some woods walking came a large meadow/field, then it was back into the trees with a few significant climbs. At one point, a couple falcons or hawks (probably falcons) swooped overhead and settled on a tree limb, eyeing me but not showing much care about my presence.
Made it to the junction where the trail splits. One part goes about 28 miles northeast to the CT River and the other goes all the way to NH. Most thru-hikers don’t do the section northeast, they head for NH. That counts as a thru-hike, no worries. However, I wanted to do the northeast “spur” too since it is only 28 miles. I headed right and made it to the Rockland Preserve Campsite before 1pm.
I was pleased with my time – this was the first serious mileage hike with a full backpack since my hysterectomy last September. I got an early start in the morning because I didn’t know if I would need more time than my pre-surgery pace. Everything felt fine, and my speed is back to normal. I did feel my pack more than I thought I should, though – in later days I adjusted the contents so the heavier items now ride higher up, and that has fixed the issue.
I set up camp and explored the site a bit. It’s a large camping area with four or five platforms, lots of picnic benches, a privy, and a bear-box. Nice! After exploring, I waited in my tent for Apple Pie and Greenleaf, who let me know they’d be there around 6:30. As I waited, I felt pangs of nostalgia for my daughters. All those thruhikes we shared – we played specific card games and the girls wrote in journals once in our tent – it was weird and kind of sad to now have a tent to myself.
Apple Pie and Greenleaf showed up just before my lip started to quiver, and it was so good to see them! We had a great time talking trails and sharing traveling stories, and they gave me juice, a Dutch cookie – and Greenleaf gave me a fabulous battery recharger!! So awesome!! This was the perfect first night on trail, and I have the two of them to thank for it.
April 5, 2022. About 16 miles. Destination: Thayer Road by Seven Falls. (Doing CT Sections 1-3 before continuing north)
It was cold last night! I wore all layers, plus put my sleeping bag inside my emergency bivy (the orange plastic bag thing). Coyotes howled all night long – that was lovely. Two would howl together and make duets with rising and falling cadences. Wish I had turned on my phone and recorded it.
Said goodbye to Apple Pie and Greenleaf the next morning. I don’t think I’ll see Apple Pie again until she’s finished her NSTs in July. I look forward to following her journey on IG.
I left Rockland Preserve and headed up Mica Ledges, then went on to Mount Pisgah and Bear Rock. Sunny skies lit the way.
My pack still bothered me – I hadn’t adjusted the contents so it felt unnecessarily heavy (how you pack your backpack makes all the difference in how it feels!). This is a fairly new pack after retiring my Gossamer Gear one that I had since 2014 and used and abused heavily every week. This new one is Six Moon Designs, and I like it, but contents shift differently and it would be another couple of days before I figured out how to pack my things just right in there. Not the bag’s fault, just a learning curve with new-to-me gear.
The trail continued through forest, then ended up along some power lines where a car sits rusting away. The last bit is a road walk down under Route 9 and to Thayer Road. From here I got a Lyft to an AirBnB for the evening.
April 6, 2022. Just over ten miles.
All photos from today have a Ziplock filter, meaning my phone stayed in a Ziplock all day to protect it from the constant rain.
I finished the “northeast spur” part of the trail today. Tomorrow I will get a ride from trail angel Young Nana to get back to the junction and head north.
I slept seven straight hours in a comfy bed at the BnB. Woke at 3:30am, ate the breakfast they’d left in a fridge, played on my phone for a while, called a Lyft and got on trail around 6:30.
The rain didn’t feel like a big deal. Slackpacking felt GREAT – I will pack my bag a little differently for tomorrow and see if that doesn’t make a difference in how the full pack feels. (Spoiler alert – it made all the difference in the world).
Nice walk with ledges by a lake, several ponds/lakes, slight climbs, a couple of power line hill views. Water crossings all easy with stepping stones in spite of the rain.
Kept a careful watch on myself to make sure I didn’t get chilled. Regulated my temperature by putting on and removing my hood as needed. Only felt a little cold once. Eating an energy bar helped. Made sure I drank enough today. Trail in great shape except for very end near northeast terminus where a wheeled vehicle has torn up the trail in the mud. Easy to get around that though. The trail ends at a factory with an interesting smell, but besides that, the trail is lovely. I’m glad I did these sections, and I highly recommend them to other thru-hikers.
Finished at noon, got an Uber back to the BnB, rested, and FaceTimed with one of my daughters. My BnB host made me yummy cookies – I ate six and wrapped the other six to give to Young Nana, the trail angel giin the morning.
April 7, 2022. 11 miles, from the junction to Cattail Shelter.
Left my cozy AirBnB early, (photo is of my hiking doll Eva Mae in the bed), wonderful trail angel Young Nana picked me up at 6am to drive me back to Rockland Preserve, where I took a local trail up to the NET and hiked back to the junction.
I headed north from the junction toward Cattail Shelter. Only 11 miles today, and with a repacked backpack I felt much lighter and happier. I flew down the trail and made it to the shelter by noon.
Scenery today included more pretty woods with some ledge views over various bodies of water. Northwoods, Trimountain State Park, Three Notches.
Cattail Shelter is a cute two structure shelter that realistically fits one person each (two if you super squeeze). It’s on someone’s property and close to the road. I was grateful for it – BUT – as of the night I stayed, both structures need roof repair. When the heavy rains came in the afternoon, I kept switching my gear from one to the other to see which shelter would leak the least. One of them has an entire corner of the roof loose (and was 75% wet inside the next morning), and the other had a drip leak right in the middle. I chose the one with the leak right in the middle. I put my sleeping bag into my waterproof emergency bivy and slept on my side – this way the water dripped on my hip and rolled off to each side of me. My bag and I stayed dry through the night this way, with two avoidable puddles of water on either side of me when I woke up the next morning. I kept my gear back in the corners of the shelter, and that all stayed dry. Had I slept in the other shelter, or had I not had that emergency bivy thing (looks like an orange and silver plastic bag), I would have been drenched during the night. So if you use this shelter, check out the roofs first to see if they have been repaired. If they haven’t, and if there is rain coming, I’d pitch a tent right in front of the shelters instead of using the shelters themselves.
LINKS FOR REST OF HIKE
Okay – I’ve been trying to upload more photos to this post for days, and I think perhaps I have too many on one post already..?? Anyway, I think for this, and for any other hike that lasts longer than one week, I’ll just post a link to my thru-hike video as well as give the info to my Instagram account and my Trailjournals entries. Otherwise, I think it’s too much for one blog post…especially once I start hiking NSTs like the AT etc.
My YouTube video of the NET – photos put together into one 28-minute video showing what the trail looks like (in April, anyway).
Instagram is @trishellisusa Scroll through to the April 2022 dates to see the daily updates and photos
Trailjournal: WhiskeyJane
In sum – loved it, every time I do a thru I understand more and more that I was never meant to stay in one place for very long.