Day 124
We got ready for an easy morning of fairly level walking and were just about to leave the shelter when Secrets, Shenanigans, Huff, and Puff all walked by! We chatted for a while as we packed up our gear and then we hiked out toward Little Rock Pond. It was fairly easy and we got there quickly, chatting and leap frogging with a few hikers. We came to two cairn gardens along the way and added to them before heading to our third Bear Mountain of the trip. The climb was easy and went quickly. We saw a trail maintenance group building up the trail after all the hurricane damage and doing incredible stone work across the seepage and mud pits. We took a short break at Minerva Hinchey shelter and ran into Roller and Sunkist again. We now had a small uphill and a giant downhill before The Whistle Stop Cafe. The downhill into town was strange. We’d come off beautifully maintained trail to a trail that wasn’t blazed and I got lost several times before making it down. When we finally got down there, I realized I had lost my bite valve on my Camelbak and it was running all over me! We went down to the restaurant and got meatball sandwiches and split 2 liters of rootbeer before we did our final climb, a 500-foot, 0.5 mile rock scramble! The sun was hot and my stomach was killing me, but up and over we went to the Clarendon shelter. It was a beautiful old farm site with fresh flowers, good water, and soft grass. CandyBar, Trekking Pole, Secrets and Shenanigans, and a ton of section hikers were at this place- good thing it’s big! We got a fire going and hung out until 10 pm. It was so great to see Secrets and Shenanigans on trail again. The photo is of just a few hikers hanging out at the shelter.