Day 95 Wildcat Shelter to William Brien Memorial Shelter

Today's miles 19.6.  AT miles 1389.6

We had a tough but enjoyable day today.  We woke up to a blue sunny sky which was a nice change after a few cloudy showery days.  We left camp at 8am and after a couple of miles passed a lovely waterfall, Fitzgerald Falls.  The trail continued up steep rocky steps at the side of the falls. Steep rocky climbs and scrambles were the theme of the day, we were constantly going up and down rocky  mountain tops which slowed our pace down. 

We passed a box with trail magic first aid supplies.  We didn't need anything but I helped myself to some feminine necessities, non applicator tampons, they're not so readily available in the small shops over here.  We passed another trail magic cooler just after, but unfortunately that was empty.

We passed quite a lot of people out for the day, it was especially busy on the way to Island Pond Mountain, past a lake and to the 'Lemon Squeezer' - a narrow rock squeeze to climb through requiring the removal of packs. Straight after was a technical steep rocky ledge to climb up. Following us was a father and son duo,  Nigel helped them with their packs through the lemon squeezer and put his instructor head on helping the son and another lady up the rocky ledge.   After the Lemon Squeezer we crossed the New York Long Trail.  If we'd have followed that for 52 miles we'd have reached Manhattan.

More ups and downs and eventually we came to Tiorati Circle/Beach.   A very busy lake tourist spot, it was packed with people having bbq's next to their cars in the car park. There was also a Beach area by the lake.  We didn't go for the beach, just to use the free showers available.  It was so nice to get a shower again, I rinsed my clothes out this time too.  (Tomorrow we get a proper shower and laundry, we'll be in a town hotel.) We also had a nice cold coke and ice cream whilst there, small things please us, a well worthwhile hour break from our hike.

From Lake Tiorati we had a further four miles to go the reach our camp spot at the William Brien Memorial shelter.  Luckily the trail was quite easy for those last few miles and we managed to get a good pace going, eager to get to the shelter and rest.   Again due to the bank holiday weekend it was very busy and noisy, a large group were there, when we arrived quite late at 7:15pm.  There was plenty of tent space left though away from the crowds.