Monday, July 23, 2012

Vermont and 1600 Miles So Far

I thought I'd show you a picture of the tent platforms, so you could see what I was referring to last night. I took a picture right before we took down our tent. Swamprat had already taken down his. The funny thing was, inside our tent I was able to get strong 3G service, but in his tent, just 30 feet away, he was struggling to get ANY internet service. Here are the tent platforms:




We packed up, and headed for the town of North Adams, MA, where the Friendly's is located. It ended up being about 5 miles away. Lighthouse (James) joined us, and along the way he met a hiker named Hermes who had just finished hiking the Long Trail through Vermont. He joined us also for breakfast.
The Long Trail was this country's first long distance hiking trail, developed between 1910 and 1930. It runs 273 miles from the southern boundary of Vermont up to the Canadian border. We actually will follow it for 105 miles for the first part of the AT in Vermont.
I had my omelette that I'd dreamed of last night. Everyone in the restaurant treated us great. You can tell when people are used to seeing AT hikers, and these folks were fans. The waitress even offered to fill up our water bottles before we left.
When she took Lighthouse's order, she asked, "Would you like pancakes or French toast with that?". He replied, "Well, I'd like pancakes, . . . but I'd also like French toast." We got a big kick out of that. She did end up bringing him both, and he managed to eat it all!
Once we were all happy and full, we hit the trail, anxious to reach Vermont. We only had to hike about 4 miles, and we hit the sign for Vermont and the Long Trail.




We also ran into Einstein, whom we have not seen in months. He was with Jaybird, and two other hikers, Coffee to go, and Mr. Noodles. We have heard of these last two, but not met them before. Jaybird and Einstein had just gotten mohawks, and so they looked very different. Lighthouse had told us that he was going to get one also.
Since this was the southern trail head for the Long Trail, we met some other hikers who were starting that trail. They would be ending up at the Canadian border when they were done.
As we hiked today, it turned out to be very humid again, and we ended up with our clothes being totally soaked with sweat. We hydrated like crazy. Luckily, around lunch, a line of thunderstorms rolled through and cooled things off nicely. It never did rain on us though.
At one point we stopped to filter and sterilize water at a pond that was extremely low. However, there was a stream flowing out of it that looked promising. We had seen enough dry streams that we knew if we came upon water, we had better get some. We have see ponds like this before. It sure looks like they need rain in this part of the country.




We have not seen too much wildlife in the past several days, but today we saw lots of baby turkeys in the woods with the momma turkeys. They were really cute, and they all scattered when we approached. I was wishing my little brother Phil was here, because he does the best turkey call of anyone I know, and I figured he could get them to get together for a group photo.
We hiked on into camp feeling really tired for some reason. Yesterday was a much harder hike than today. But we all feel tired tonight. I think yesterday is probably catching up to us. We will definitely sleep well tonight.
























Steady and F100

1 comment:

Good Tidings said...

Hey, this is Hermes!

Just found your blog by chance, wanted to say hi seeing as I got a mention. Congrats on your thru hike! I'm planning a full AT hike next summer because the Long Trail wasn't enough!