Got up and met the shuttle at 700, heading straight back to the trail. The driver, Cooper, was asking about the bridge so I told him I'd send him a note once I got there to confirm that it was fixed.
Had a little view on the way up out of the gap, but that was about it for the day due to fog.
Saw some morels popping up. I was not confident enough in my foraging to eat them though.
The bridge was fine. Apparently one of the cables had failed and now it's repaired! I'm glad I didn't have to backtrack (fording was too dangerous here).
Went by a little pasture.
The Governor Clement Shelter was neat: made of stone and included a fireplace. But I had plans to continue hiking.
Started up Mt. Killington which initially went pretty quick. About halfway up I started to see many trees had been blown over. I had to go over, around, and through all the dead falls in the trail which made it slow going. You can see the blaze in the center of the picture showing where the trail should have been.
Made it to Cooper Lodge shelter, which I had imagined looking like this on the inside:
Unfortunately, despite the fun name, the shelter was in rough condition with a damaged roof, trash, and tales of mice. Of course the potential view was only fog.
It had gotten windy and cooled off quite a bit during the day to 3°C (37°F). With the light rain, I really wanted a roof over my head for the night. I decided to push 4ish more miles to the next shelter after seeing the condition of this one.
Pulled in to Churchill Scott shelter after 10.5 hours of hiking. Perhaps my longest duration day yet. Tired and chilly I filtered water, made dinner, put up a bear hang (no box here), and crawled into my sleeping bag for the night.