cowle's cove shelter to bamforth shelter

miles: 10.1

despite the weather report, it rained pretty hard last night. lots of lightning as well. when i’m warm and dry, i love that sort of thing, so i slept well.

when i woke, the trees were still dripping, but only a little bit. there were some minor puddles in the tent, though i’m not certain where they came from. i did notice that when i moved the tent, it was wet underneath as well, so maybe i have some pinhole leaks in the bathtub portion. this tent is still a little short for me, and if i hit the foot of the tub section, sometimes water can flow down the screen and into the tent. it wasn’t too bad though, mostly just the bottom of my sleeping pad and the foot of my sleeping bag.

packed everything up and went to the shelter. someone had arrived during the night, but was already on her way out. nails and mate were just getting up. they were heading north over camel’s hump and then down to rt. 2, a 15 mile day. my plan was to do 10 miles to bamforth shelter, hoping to hear back from layla and bria for a thursday resupply. i inquired as to whether they would mind me tagging along with them for my slow day. they were all for it.

the three of us set out at around 0630hr headed for burnt rock mountain. a quick 1.5 mile walk and we were there. the path got steep and turned to rock as we approached the summit.

it was clouded, so we kept moving along the ridge and down the other side. the rocks were wet and slippery. we were thankful that there was a rope at one point and an aluminum ladder at another.

the trail was wet, sometimes just a massive puddle, other times a river. we pressed on to mt. ethan allen. the weather cleared just a bit for some photos.

then we started toward the main goal of the day, camel’s hump.

after climbing essentially 2 miles of stairs and giant rocks, we reached the summit.

the summit was a bit clouded, but started to clear while we were there. “lightweight”, one of the hikers i met at birch glen lodge yesterday showed up with her dog, riley.

i decided it was time to power on my phone to see if layla and bria were going to be able to ferry me tomorrow. disaster! my 18% battery was now not enough to boot my phone. lightweight thankfully heard my plea, and having overnighted in town had a battery brimming with charge and i plugged my phone in.

i called layla, as no new text messages had come in. she was delighted to help me out! yes! as i hung up, her reply texts came through.

we loitered on the summit for a bit longer before heading down. nails and mate had 5 more miles than me to get to their car. the route down wasn’t nearly as steep. it was also punctuated with “ledges” that were really just open rock areas where the trees hadn’t grown. they offered some really great views.

i got ahead of nails and mate and made it to bamforth shelter pretty early and set up camp. i strung a line and hung everything out to dry. later lightweight and riley showed up to the shelter. they had a note from nails for me with all her deets and an offer to call if i needed anything on my SOBO. so awesome. i’m sure i’ll be running into them again.

there is also a section hiker here tonight, ian, with his we guess 2 year old black german shepherd, otto.