Vermont

Day 63, August 9

We set off at 5:18 am after sleeping past the alarm. The morning was cloudless and somewhat cool. We made our way down to a residential area through which we walked to Mass. 2 Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out . Leaving the trail, and turning right, we walked six-tenths to Friendly's Restaurant where we enjoyed a hearty breakfast. After shopping at the Price Chopper supermarket and loading our packs, we returned to the trail where we had left it, and carried on.

As usual this past month, we had bought a huge quantity of food, such that our packs were uncomfortably heavy. Perhaps it was the packweight, or maybe the large breakfast - we felt we could barely drag ourselves up the hill.

We reached the Massachusetts-Vermont state line (12 states behind us, 3 more ahead), where the AT joins The Long Trail and follows it for nearly 100 miles. The AT showed little improvement, despite the trail crew's work. The area was boggy and rocky, and the trail seemed only to emphasize that. The forest had a very thick understory and seemed to be getting more dense the farther from New York we traveled. For the record, we had not noticed any poison ivy since Connecticut.

Perhaps because of the steepness of the trail, we found ourselves short on our day's mileage, so we hurried along, scurrying over the split log bridges, pretending they were "people movers" like the moving sidewalks at an airport. As we ran along, the boards sprung pleasantly to the weight of our feet.

The descent to VT 9 Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out and City Stream was a real knee-knocker. The trail was festooned in rock steps by the hundreds. Today's water had been minimal. We carried some from the restaurant, and we drank and topped our bottles at a semi-spring beyond the Dunville Hollow Camping area.

While patching what I thought was a blister on my heel, I realized it was a split callous. I treated it with Lanabiotic. We stopped hiking at 8:40 pm and pitched the tent not far from Hell Hollow Brook.

Day's mileage: 26.5

Day 64, August 10

We set off at 5:01 am and climbed Glastenbury Mountain, passing Goddard Shelter Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out on the way, and a nice piped spring where we collected water. Since leaving Massachusetts we've noticed a dramatic change in the ecology. Here in Vermont on the AT/LT we are in the North Woods type of ecology - dense mixed forest with sometimes thick understory of ferns and Queen's cup with bright blue fruit.

As we pressed on, we saw moose droppings and tracks. At the trailhead parking lot for Stratton Mountain there were at least ten cars parked. We passed many parties of day hikers as we climbed Stratton Mountain Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out . At the top, Amy, the caretaker greeted us, as clouds swirled all around.

On the descent, rain began falling, and we walked with umbrellas overhead. Stratton Pond was beautiful, and we again were greeted by the caretaker there - a "91 thru-hiker. We collected water from a small lake-side spring, then carried on a few more miles to a small creek where we stripped to bathe. Mid-bath, another thru-hiker passed by. One's privacy is not guaranteed in the wilds. We reached our thirty at 8:10 pm, but had to continue another half a mile to find a campsite. We stopped above Prospect Rock at 8:24 pm.

Day's mileage: 30.5

Day 65, August 11

Driven by hunger we set off at 5:04 am and hiked hard for several hours, thinking we had to make twenty-four miles by seven pm to a store. Then Jenny recalculated the mileage and moved the store eight miles ahead, placing it out of our reach for the day. This meant that we could slow our pace, but also that the evening camp would be a hungry one.

The day was cool, allowing us to hike with a will. We reveled in the beautiful forests so unlike anything farther south. We met a south-bounder who told us he had just seen a moose. We climbed several mountains and descended their far sides. At Mad Tom Notch we collected water from a hand pump. This was at 10 am, and it proved our last water source until evening. We met six or eight south-bounders. One group comprised a girl from Maine, a fellow from Georgia, and another from Quebec.

We reached Vermont 140 at 8:00 pm and obtained water from a residence, at the invitation of a sign. We each drank two quarts, and filled our bottles. Then we walked a quarter mile more and made camp in a stand of white pines, away from the gravel road. [ revised route Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out The old 1993 route descended the drainage of Bully Brook to Vermont 140.]

Day's mileage: 31.5

Day 66, August 12

We broke camp in the dark and a light rain, and set off at 5:13. We continued hiking along the road, searching for the elusive white blazes, which had been scarce the past few days. The AT led over Bear Mt, and for the next for one-and-a-half hours we used our umbrellas. then crossing a the bridge over the Clarendon Gorge, we reached the highway VT. 103 Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out at 7:45 am.

We left the AT and walked most of the way to the Clarendon General Store. A fellow and his wife stopped and gave us a lift for the last half a mile. The folks said that they had section hiked the AT in 10 years. They insisted we take some fruit from their cooler. We would have liked to get to know them better.

The store was sparsely stocked, but somehow we spent $43. After sitting outside eating microwaved pizza and donuts, we walked the mile back to the trail. The trail was in rugged condition, but on Beacon Hill we stopped to dry the tent, fly, etc. The sun was not shining but its warmth was penetrating the clouds. We encountered the most distance hikers of any day on the trek - at least a dozen. The trail climbed Killington Peak and then descended to the Inn at Long Trail Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out where we obtained water. A few miles farther the AT and the Long Trail went their separate ways. Surprisingly the AT appeared very little used in comparison.

Farther on, Jenny went into the Mountain Meadows Lodge Restaurant to obtain water, and after a considerable search for a tap, she finally walked through the dining room to the waitress' station and with permission filled our bottles from a pitchers of water.

After more galumphing, the trail climbed a nameless mountain. Here the grade was steep and continuous, a trend that seemed to be increasing the farther north we traveled. We finished the climb by flashlight in a fog and stopped to pitch the tent along the trail at 9:00 pm. Happily, we were inside at the onset of the sprinkles.

Day's mileage: 30.5

Day 67, August 13

We set off at 5:04 am, after a mostly rainless night. By the time we had descended the mountain and reached the turnoff to Stony Brook Shelter, we realized the Data Book mileage was considerably in error, a situation that was to persist throughout the day. The cause was various trail re-routings that had added mileage.

Mid-morning we met two fellows slack packing southward, but working their way northward. We had met them the previous morning at the Clarendon General Store. They were part of a group of seven sharing one car. These two fellows had started in Georgia early April, and one of the others had started in January.

At VT. 12 Click on "trail segment"
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then zoom out we enjoyed a bath in the creek. The day had grown warm, and we had not been in water for many days. In many places along the way we found apple trees bristling with fruit, but probably because of the drought the apples were small, immature, and inedible. Likewise we saw many raspberries, but they too were dry and pithy.

At the next creek crossing we stopped and filtered water, and met a south-bound hiker who seemed anxious for a quarrel with anyone.

The hiking was arduous, relentlessly up and down, sometimes unpleasantly steep. We joked that finishing the AT will be like waking up from a very taxing dream (a parody of a PCT quote). Notwithstanding the rough-hewn trail, the country was beautiful. At the high vistas was the sight of tree-clad mountains extending away in all directions. The ecology was not the moose-like dense forest of the days previously, but a much more open one, with minimal understory.

We had hoped to reach the West Hartford Country Store, but the additional re-routing miles left us short. At sunset we enjoyed a high but hungry vista looking down at a freeway, the cars indicated by their noise and fast moving headlights. After walking by flashlight another forty-five minutes, we stopped at 9:02 pm and pitched the tent alongside the trail.

Day's mileage: 31.0