23.71km

Here we go! I feel like I've been preparing months for this day and I can't believe it's actually here. I'm going to try to give you some information on the trail as I go because my maps are full of historical facts. The trail association was formed in 1994 and their goal is to connect all the trails on the east coast of Newfoundland, around the Avalon peninsula. Many of these trails are quite old and important historically to the villages along them. The ECTA is still working on connecting the trail and hope to extend it to Placentia.

I was up at 5 AM to ensure I had time to repack before heading to where I was leaving my car. I had over a month to practice packing with the hammock in my bag and perfected how I liked it but I really only had last night and this morning to play around with packing the tent. I repacked it a bit better than last night and did a bit more research while I waited until it was time to leave. I found a trail angel on a Facebook group who said I could leave my car in her driveway and she will drop me off at the trail on the way to work. I got to her place about 730. She didn’t actually need to leave the house until eight so I did some more re-packing up my bag. I also made sure to tidy my car so that no one would be tempted by it while I was gone.

I know a lot of people are kind of apprehensive that I would just leave my car at someone’s house, but I drive stick shift so I feel like that’s a little bit of an antitheft in the first place. Plus it’s backed in so nobody can see that I have outside plates which should mean most people think it’s another one of their cars. Unless I wanted to pay an arm and a leg to park it in an underground video surveillance lot I think this is my best option. Especially because it came with a ride to the trail head and a person specifically looking out for it.

I got to the trail head at about 8:20, I hope I am going to start my days more around sunrise on the trail but I this is the way my ride worked out. The trail started off really nice and wide, the board walks are definitely freshly put in this summer and made things a lot easier. I stopped about 10:50 for a snack and to just rest a few minutes. I actually only had to do about 4 km of trail before I had a 4 km road walk. Since the ECT is a connection of existing trails, a lot of them go through communities, not just when I need to get from trail head to trail head. The road walks I found were really hot because there are no trees for any shade but everybody said hi to me from the porch which is kind of nice. I also felt at points that I was just walking through peoples backyards, like this photo here;

I wasn't spoiled with a fresh boardwalk and smooth roads the whole time though and the trail definitely started to get muddy at points. I was told to take the trail this direction, instead of starting at Cappahayden, because the other end is really muddy and this will help keep your feet dry longer. If this is dry trail I’m a little apprehensive to see what they consider is wet...

My guess that the boardwalk was done recently was proven correct when I ran into two maintenance crews on this trail. Each of them had about 10 people, the first one an older gentleman stopped me and asked a few questions. He said they’ve had way less thru hikers this year because 57% of them don’t come from Newfoundland or Canada, I can’t remember which. He was really excited to see me since there have been so few this year. Going past the crews was really nice because they all saw my pack and asked if I was heading to Cappahayden and then cheered me on. I only passed one other hiker on this trail whole trail and he was going the opposite way.

After the road walk, I went back on the trail to climb Beachy Cove Hill. Going up this hill with the pack was definitely a challenge, and I stopped lots. (If you didn't read any of my preparation posts leading up to this, my pack is much heavier than I'm used to. I'm lactose intolerant and vegetarian so I can't rely on finding a lot of resupply options.) By now the sun is shining in full force and it’s really hot. I ran into three other hikers going the other way on this trail, it makes sense I'm not seeing a lot since it is a work day. I hope the weekends will mean the trail is a lot more populated.

I specifically got Altra lone Peak trail running shoes for this hike as itt is what the majority of thru hikers wear. Basically people doing the Appalachian and trails like that all swear by these shoes. I wore them on a few practice hikes in Gros Morne and I was really impressed. I found my feet didn’t get tired and heavy the same way they did with boots. I really liked that when I took them off at night it was like a full reset instantly for my feet. However, today I realized that they are both coming apart from the soles. I’m really hoping they will last me another ~11 days but I’m not sure. I did email running rooms customer service and they said I’m eligible for a refund and there is one downtown St. John’s. The trail does technically take me through downtown St. John‘s so It wouldn’t be a huge detour to go. But if they don’t have a pair for me to exchange them for then I’m not totally sure what I would do. There is also St. John‘s outfitters a few blocks down on the same street. So I could return them and then go get shoes there but it’s definitely a little bit of an awkward situation to be in.

After Beachy Cove Hill, I had another road walk, or community walk. It was along this community walk to the next trail that I definitely started to feel how tired I was. When I got to it though I saw I only had 5 km to go to the pond with the campsite I wanted to stay at. This campsite was recommended to me by pretty much everyone who went through the trail this summer, most of them said it’s the nicest campsite I’ll see all trail. I know there will be other spots I could camp but I those reviews are pretty tempting.

Piccos Ridge gets it's name from the four Piccot brothers who settled here in Portugal Cove in the late 1700s. Apparently they were wealthy fishermen here and the one even had three houses and multiple properties. Here's a fun excerpt from the ECTA maps about one of the brothers;

Theophilus Piccot famously poked at a mysterious object in the water, and was attacked by a kraken (giant squid). He hacked off a six-metre (19') tentacle with an axe...

This is one of the trails that is referred to as strenuous, and I really felt it. The first little bit, there are stairs, but you just go up and up and up and up and up and up with very little tree cover. Here's a shot of some of the stairs as they curve up;

To be totally honest, I was really feeling it and contemplating finding an earlier campsite. I want to be set up before dark and finding campsites makes me a little anxious. After about an hour and a half another hiker was coming up behind me and that gave me some motivation to keep moving. He saw my pack and of course stopped to chat, he was just out for an evening hike and decided to keep me company for a bit. I actually really really appreciated it because this last stretch was so hard, I liked having the company distract me. Plus I had somebody take some pictures of me, and look out for me in case I fell on the dangerous parts.

I am a little worried about letting men know exactly where I will be camping. But he gave me his name and his phone number and said if I want to company for any other stretches to let him know so I don’t think he’s a murderer.

The first thing I do when I get to camp is set up my tent and bed. Then I filled my water bladder and hung it up in a tree so I would have water in the morning. I like doing as much as I can the night before because it makes the morning easier. After I'm done all the work, I'll start dinner, and I save putting on my clean warm pajamas until I'm getting into the tent for the night.

While digging my dinner out of my bag I had a little visitor. At first I was really really confused as why there was a cat walking through the forest but then I figured it out. We had a little staring contest for probably a full minute before he ran away.

By the time I got changed into my tent clothes and snuggled up in my sleeping bag I was absolutely exhausted. My goal is not to sleep before 9 PM, otherwise it might just turn into a nap. Since the sun sets before that I had some time still, I worked on the last blog post and checked in with friends. And then I would say I fell sleep shortly after nine.

Today was definitely very scenic:

My tip for any other thru hikers is to make it to this campsite at Brocks Head Pond. Weather depending, it's a great spot for swimming but it's a beauty and perfect for the first night!