lost pond shelter to clarendon shelter

i woke up around 06:00. i was awake, so decided to get going even though we had no rush. i had breakfast in my tent to avoid the mosquitoes - they were a big part of dinner last night.

i was on trail just after 07:00. the day warmed up quickly. within a few miles i had passed big branch and made it to little rock pond. i snapped a couple obligatory photos and took a pretty extended break sitting on the shore. maestro showed up about a half hour later.

the rest of the morning was moving through the forest. i didn’t specifically remember much of the trail, except the rock gardens, but the feeling was very familiar.

i got to minerva hinchley shelter around 13:00 for lunch. i ate quickly and got back on trail. the afternoon was hot. reports at camp tonight said it got up to 93f. i crossed clarendon gorge and thought about swimming, but there were a lot of people and i didn’t want to deal, so i continued across the suspension bridge and across the road.

clarendon gorge is somewhat legendary in that you get a view of an airport, have a pretty brutal descent, and then after you cross the gorge you immediately have a brutal ascent followed by another view of the exact same airport, now from a slightly different angle. it’s a lot of effort to move only a few angular degrees.

from there however it was a pretty quick hike to clarendon shelter. i was looking forward to this shelter because in 2020 there was a guy who kept a cooler in the shelter stocked with beer. sadly both times i stopped by it was just empty cans. i found out tonight from the new caretaker that he “disappeared”.

maestro showed up and pitched his tent by mine. he had just got a text from rocket saying they a little while later rocket made an appearance, but he ate and then left as he had a friend who might ne hiking with him in the next day or so and he needed to get ahead. kick showed up and pitched his tent a little while later.

rocket and kick both told me that bugs had mentioned she might want to do a 40 mile day to get to the road into rutland, but that she and lyric would stop here in the way. lyric showed up close to 21:00 and pitched his tent. he said bugs was there, but she decided to carry on and do some more miles in the dark.

some additional images from today: