Day 44 – 52 Southern Vermont

Longer than expected post.  I’d hoped to post a few days ago to keep these shorter but cell coverage didn’t allow for it.  Also wifi and cell coverage in Dalton is *really* touch and go so after a few hours of uploading pictures I’d like to get back to walking.

Day 44

I feel a bit cheated when I get to sleep in a bed for once but then sleep poorly anyhow.  Though to be fair, it was probably the excessive Guinness, not the bed.

Slow paced morning finishing up town stuff.  Namely, finishing a post for thetrek.co as well as buying my resupply food.  Spent awhile chatting with Kristine about the rt 4 road crossing on the trail.  Currently, there aren’t any pedestrian crossing protections, and there’s a lot of people crossing the highway.  Decent amount of car traffic as well.

Met up with another college outdoors club friend, Tony, to hike for a short 25 mile-ish section over and past Mt Killington.   I’m really glad to be able to catch up as I don’t see my east coast friends all that often.

Apparently, Mt Killington is the highest elevation I’m going to be at for quite some time.  Until the Smoky mountains near the end of the trail.

Day 45

Spent the morning hiking with Tony.  The hiking itself was relatively easy and non descript aside from a swimming spot in Claredon gorge that was pretty sweet. 

And by the time we left, there was trail magic being set up.  We didn’t hang out long but did grab a few sodas before taking off.  Lots of trail magic over the past few days as I overlap with the nobo bubble.  Once that’s through, I’m not really expecting to see much of it.

One final ridge climb and descent and Tony was back to his bike so he could ride off to the real world.  Back to the world of solo hiking and podcasts.  One of which was backpacker radio (thetrek.co ‘s podcast) about foot care.  Useful information, though trying to implement them immediately led to a lot of thought and awareness of how my toes were behaving.  And a bit less awareness applied to the rocky uphill so there were a few literal stumbles (but no falls).

 

Rolled into what I was worried would be a packed shelter but there’s not nearly as many people here as I expected.  According to the caretaker there were 30 odd people last night.  There’s maybe 10 tonight.  Very nice shelter,  it has not one, but two picnic tables!  One of which is even sheltered!  Simple things can be very exciting on trail!

Day 46

Ended up with a short ish day.  I couldn’t hike past the highway into Manchester regardless so it limited me to at most 17ish miles.  Plus there’s a ski patrol cabin at Bromley that made for an attractive place to stop.  It has outlets to charge stuff as well as a dryer.  The latter was convenient as it rained a fair amount.

Also, I slipped in mud and broke my trekking pole.  Whomp whomp.

Town day tomorrow.   I’m hoping to get into and out of town relatively quickly.  I think I’m going to try to trail zero at Stratton pond Wednesday.   It’s supposed to storm and rain most of an inch.  Which seems like a good time to be at a shelter.  It’s near ish a town and close to a mile off trail so hopefully it’s not too crowded.  We’ll see.

Day 47

Quite the storm overnight.  Woke up to a really bright flash and an errant gust of wind coming in the windows of the ski patrol hut.  Good time to be in a grounded building.  At least I assume it was grounded.   In any case, zero of the 10 or so hikers staying there were electrocuted.  Pretty good night of sleep for being around so many people.

 

Hero resupplied in Manchester center.  Got in, very quickly – easily my fastest hitch ever, resupplied, got second breakfast,  and got back to trail.  Only hiccups were my new trekking pole hadn’t arrived yet and needs to be forwarded.  And that thc gummies are really expensive in Vermont.

 

Packed out an extra day of food, some Guinness, and a danish for a trail zero tomorrow.   On the theory that it’s supposed to storm.  And there’s a brand new and probably sparsely used shelter on the other side of Stratton pond.

Thus far, it has a nice lakeside view of Mt Stratton, a rather confusing approach trail, and no other people here.

Day 48 – Trail zero

Quite a lazy day.  Admittedly, by design but it feels strange nonetheless. It’s my first time trail zeroing on any trail.  The extent of my activity was to hike back half a mile to get cell coverage so I could finish downloading a book.

A couple of people stayed last night and a few more waited out part of a storm this afternoon.  But mostly, I’ve just read and napped.

Day 49

Harder than expected day.  The first half was pretty easy and included trail magic where I procured Gatorade.   And was able to dispose of the extra trash from the trail zero.  Packing out a Danish was great, and I may do it again.  It was certainly more appealing than bagels.  Bulky packaging, though.

Second half of the day was loads of rock hopping through mud or just standing water.  I somehow kept my feet dry all day, but it’s fatiguing walking and hopping with zero rhythm.  Felt a bit like a weird dune walk, minus the worms, sand,  and such.

Day 50

Started early today because the forecast projected rain in the late afternoon.  A lot of rain.  My goal was to get to a shelter at 17.5 miles before the rain.  

I succeeded, despite it really being 19.5 miles – the mileage on the android version of FarOut (the ubiquitous navigation app that most thru hikers use) was wrong.  There was an extra 2 miles hidden somewhere between this shelter and the road to Bennington.  I think I’m getting those ghost 2 miles back tomorrow with town being closer than it appears.  Weird bug, somewhat maddening to hike through.

Day 51 – Massachusetts!

I was right about getting the two miles back, thankfully.  It would be a pretty non descript section of trail but it rained quite a bit at times.  Rolled into town and spent awhile charging and drying out in front of stop and shop.  Which would possibly have been the best store on trail to resupply at as it’s a full size grocery store on/near trail.  …except I only needed a day of food.  Towns in MA are *really* close together.

Ran into trail magic on the way out of town.  I’ve seen a fair amount for the last 200 miles while I overlap with the nobo bubble.  I assume it’ll drop off significantly once I’m past the bubble.   Whenever that happens.

 

Finished the day cruising halfway ish up to Mt Greylock.  Smooth easy trail relative to what’s north of here.  And I think the last time over 3k for quite some time.

Day 52

Wet start to the morning – it rained overnight and turned my already slick tent platform into an ice rink.  Stayed upright. Thankfully.

Finished the climb up Mt Greylock to discover a couple things: 1.  The inside of a cloud and 2. It’s kind of a much more chill version of mount Washington.

 

The rest of the trail was easier – Massachusetts AT seems easier than Vermont.  I gather it’s more the new normal.   Hiking most of the day with Cheeto and Tomato.  We made it to Dalton to promptly get icecream (priorities!) before camping in a trail angel’s yard.

Other weird thing to happen – getting invited over to have burgers at a nearby house.   Not going because, among other reasons, I’m a vegetarian and didn’t want to deal with that awkwardness when I could just go buy a sandwich.   Then later finding out the house / person is a registered sex offender.  Huh.