No Joy in Mudville

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Actually, that is not true. While there was quite a bit of mud and slime to trek through on our 3 day, 40 mile hike in the Green Mountains of Vermont, we were actually very happy campers - warm, mostly dry and well fed. With this hike I have now section hiked the AT from the NJ-NY border through NY, CT, MA and on to Manchester Center, VT. Not a whole lot in context with the overall 2166 mile length of the trail but still a good distance. This hike with Ted and Bob started off Rt 9 in Bennington at noon on 9/29 after being dropped off by our taxi driver. The beautiful blue sky had faded into threatening dark clouds and by 2:00 o'clock we donned the rain gear and trudged uphill in moderate rain, protected somewhat by the forest canopy. On the way we met a couple of SOuthBOund thru hikers, Big Tuna and Foghorn-Leghorn (more on them later), who informed us that our destination, Goddard Shelter, had about 20 women already camped there - shelter full. We decided to find a stealth site and set up our tents for the evening. The rain, which had stopped for about an hour, started up again as we began making dinner so we headed into the tents for cover around 6:30 and called it a day. 9 miles down. The rain continued through the night and finally quit around 8 AM. Didn't think I could sleep for 12 hours but I did with no problem.

Wednesday we hiked over Glastenbury Mt in the mud and fog. We got to the Story Spring Shelter just ahead of the large group of women and found the shelter already full of more SOBOs so we decided to continue on to a SOBO-recommended stealth site along Black Brook, 2.2 miles up the trail. We had to break out the headlamps for the last 45 minutes of the hike which was not a big deal. The campsite was indeed very nice. 13 miles today, 22 total and 18 to go. Not looking good for reaching the car tomorrow.

Thursday, we broke camp at 8 AM after a rainy night and began the hike up Stratton Mt where we caught a glimpse of the season's first snowfall. I climbed the fire tower but didn't get too far as it was covered in snow and ice. I did manage a couple of nice pictures and a quick phone call despite the howling winds. We were making excellent time on the trail and got to Stratton Pond well ahead of schedule where we had a hot lunch. Back on the trail, we got to the Spruce Peak Shelter trail and decided to trek the additional 2+ miles to the car since we were still feeling pretty good. Those 2 miles turned out to be the toughest of the day and most of it was in the dark. Arrived back at the car at 8:30 PM - 18 miles for the day. Pass the Advil, please.

Sidebar: Back to Big Tuna and Foghorn-Leghorn who turned out to be quite talkative. She was a CPA for Ernst and Young and had quit to thru hike the trail. He (Big Tuna) was a restoration architect for the City of New Orleans. When I mentioned that my niece had just completed a thru hike (NOBO), she asked what her name was. At the mention of her trail name, Loon, she said they had been enthusiastically following her journal. Small world. They had almost met Loon in NH but missed her by an hour according fellow hikers, Hot Sauce, Katchup and Mustard, who had been traveling with Loon. They even remembered reading about Uncle Paul in the journal. Wow, almost a rock star. Check out Loon's AT journal at http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=262097 Apparently, she had quite a following.