I have been waiting to finish up the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut for like, six months now. My existing gear couldn’t keep me warm enough for an overnight, so I spent those months doing day hikes and thinking of how my map showed a 4-mile stretch next to the Housatonic River. I daydreamed of kingfishers and ospreys, trout and snakes. I sewed myself new gear, watched as the trees outside my window sprouted green, and chanted “river walk. River walk. River walk.” to myself as I checked weather forecasts and decided to reward myself, after an unusually hectic workweek, with a weekend outdoors, right as spring had finally unfurled.
And it was totally worth the wait.
Notable birds seen: Black and white warblers, a few rose-breasted grosbeaks, veeries (and/or other plain thrushes), phoebes, orioles, yellow warblers, redstarts, pileated woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, an owl, a great blue heron, a lanky little hawk, and common mergansers. Also red-winged blackbirds and catbirds, which are back for the warmer months! Some birder people I ran into pointed out magnolia warblers that I couldn’t quite tell from the orioles, and I might have seen a brown creeper.
Critters: red efts (90 of them? I stopped counting at 60), garter snakes, deer, all the chipmunks, and a cute millipede that was hiding in the leaves under my hammock.
I woke up at 5:00 am on Saturday and had Hubs drive me to Cornwall Bridge, where I’d ended my hike in November. I planned to hike south for 22.6 miles, stopping 11.4 miles in to sleep at Mt. Algo Shelter, and have Hubs pick me up the next afternoon where the AT crosses Hoyt Road (GPS coordinates 41.641083, -73.520139) and leaves Connecticut for the last time (or enters for the first time if you’re NOBO).
Signs of spring were all around, from the ferns uncurling themselves to the chipmunks whistling at me to the tiny wildflowers to the small garter snakes who crackled in the leaves next to the footpath. Saturday’s weather was perfect, clear and sunny and in the mid-60s.
But the best part was the 5-mile stretch along the Housatonic River, from the intersection of Dawn Hill Road (41.807750, -73.393639) down to the parking lot for St. John’s Ledges (41.757046, -73.451088). Almost immediately after crossing the road, I heard a choir of spring birds and saw a yellow warbler dart out from behind some brush. I saw a phoebe nest built under the tin roof of a shelter. I slowly realized over the next couple hours that the super-orangey robin I’d seen up high in a pine tree was actually an oriole. I didn’t even know they lived near the woods, until I saw a nest dangling over the river and saw (and heard) almost a dozen of them near the parking lot on River Road in Kent (41.767884, -73.438893).
I was thrilled to have seen two species that I rarely see. I was happy. As the trail followed a dirt road and wound away from the river, I thought I would be done adding to my bird checklist. But then I spotted what looked like a towhee, prominent black and white, bigger than most woods birds, and rustling around in a bush. Then it popped up and displayed its bright red chest. A rose-breasted grosbeak. A bird that I had been looking for in the woods, for FOUR YEARS. I got chills. It wasn’t even 11 am.
As I walked along the road, I couldn’t keep track of all the birds that had me in awe. Little redstarts, mostly black with striking flecks of orange. Yellow warblers that blended into the yellow-green growth of early spring. More orioles, somehow. Shy sapsuckers. I was in bird heaven, and I stopped to watch them move, to listen to their songs, and to take photos in an attempt to capture their beauty, or just so I could remember that this was happening to me. In some audio I recorded, I declared, “this is one of the best hiking days ever. A bear could come up and take off my arm and it would still be amazing.” I heard some birds giving alarm calls and saw a big oriole land on a branch, and before I could even get out my phone to take a photo, something lurched on the branch only inches away from the oriole, and a perfectly camouflaged brown owl spread its wings and took off, gliding through the woods in total silence. I couldn’t stop the tears that welled in my eyes.
A few more birds, a few more steps, and then I was hiking up to St. John’s Ledges, which I once heard a NOBO thru-hiker describe as the steepest descent on the trail up to that point. I would be going up those boulders, in dry conditions, so it wouldn’t be too bad… but watching some helmeted rock climbers setting anchors on the rock faces didn’t exactly thrill me about the ascent. I saw a pileated woodpecker flying near the top of the boulders, and I took it as a sign of encouragement. It was definitely more encouraging than the bleached pelvis my hand almost wrapped around as I pulled myself up.
I had already gotten what I came for, so I didn’t linger at the overlook of the Housatonic when I got to the top of the ledges and the top of Caleb’s Peak. I was more interested in getting to the shelter and hoping I could find some trees to hang up my hammock and try out the DIY underquilt and topquilt that I had sewn.
Though Mt. Algo Shelter was a quarter-mile from the road and it was a Saturday, it was peaceful: just me, a backpacker who set up his tent far away from the shelter, and a thru-hiker who took the shelter. And another oriole. And another phoebe nest, this time in the moldering privy.
It rained a little overnight, and off and on throughout the morning. I immediately saw red efts, and continued seeing them throughout the entire day. It was warm enough that I rocked my tank top without needing a rain shell, which was a pleasant surprise. So was hearing the elongated, irregular burrowing of sapsuckers in the woods around me.
The trail narrowed at parts, and went over gigantic wet rocks. “Hey, this is just like the loop hike in Macedonia Brook,” I thought to myself. Without realizing that Macedonia Brook was like a mile away.
The last few miles of trail went through Bulls Bridge, where I walked on a ledge above the Housatonic, and crossed a bridge where Ten Mile River flows in from New York. Of course, I had to take a selfie when I saw a little stick lean-to.
(This is what procrastination looks like. I was 8 miles into the day and had a 700-foot elevation gain right ahead of me.)
But I made it to the top, and I made it the two miles down, and I crossed over to the parking lot right as Hubs drove up. I had him snap a celebratory photo.
Then I had him drive me to celebratory barbecue in Danbury. Because pulled pork sandwiches and cole slaw (and yes, pickles and beer and maybe bacon cheese fries too) are the perfect combo of fresh veggies and delightful meat that I really want after subsisting on oatmeal and sugar.
Next up: a quick dayhike in Ricketts Glen in the Poconos, then taking on the Smoky Mountains!
Lumba Hikes 
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