Day 114, Riga Shelter to Glen Brook Shelter

Sun was filtering through the leaves as we began a gradual ascent toward Bear Mountain.

The trail later made a steep climb to the top of Bear Mountain, but it wasn’t difficult and we made it to the top by 8:40 a.m.

The mountain peak was a large pile of boulders, stacked there as if they were the crumbled remnants of a tower.

We stayed at the summit for several minutes with The Honeymooners to enjoy the view.

This was the highest peak in Connecticut, but not the highest spot in the state. That distinction goes to Mt. Frisell. The peak of that mountain is actually in Massachusetts, but a point where the state line crosses the side of the mountain is about 64 feet higher than this peak.

The descent from Bear Mountain’s summit dropped nearly 1,000 feet in under 1.5 miles. When I saw that on the map profile of the trail, it looked painful. Surprisingly, the descent wasn’t difficult.

At the bottom of the descent was a place called Sages Ravine. The trail followed a brook for more than a half mile through the ravine.

We stopped for a long lunch where the trail turned away from the stream and headed up another mountain top.

As we were finishing lunch we heard a low rumble of thunder.

A day hiker said he looked at a radar app on his phone and it showed the storm tracking through the valley east of us. He said we weren’t likely to get wet soon. Another system was forming west of our spot, though, and that wasn’t good news. The next few miles included walking on an exposed ridge.

The trail headed up Mt. Race and along an open ledge. From here I could see the rain passing through the valley, just as the hiker said it would.

Not knowing for sure when the other storm front would arrive, I didn’t waste any time as I walked swiftly on the rocky, exposed trail. The sky continued to rumble, but no rain fell.

Despite that concern, I stopped when I reached the top because I met a young couple out for a day hike. Furprittius (a trail name) and his friend, Violet, gave me an orange and we chatted for a short time. Furprittius told me he completed an AT thru-hike four years ago.

Eventually, though, we agreed it seemed like a storm was going to hit soon, so we continued on our separate ways.

The trail down from Mt. Everett was much easier than the climb up the other side, and I soon caught up to Stick. We stopped at a picnic spot where someone had left water for hikers.

Rain began to fall just as we started to leave. At this point, though, we were only a half mile from a place to camp, so we headed there.

Actually, there were two places to camp, The Hemlocks Shelter and Glen Brook Shelter, which were only about a tenth mile from each other. I’m not sure why two shelters were located so close together. It seemed redundant.

The rainfall wasn’t heavy, and we elected to walk to the second shelter. By the time we got there the rain had stopped.

We would have preferred to walk some more because there was still plenty of daylight left in the day, but we couldn’t find on the map any potential campsites that were within our hiking range.

The storm left behind cold air, so I didn’t take long to cook my dinner and hang my bear bag. I was in my tent by 6 p.m.