Day 1: 8/11/17

And, We’re Off

We started our day with breakfast at the hotel. Caitlin called Uber and within 2 minutes we were off to the bus station. We had 3 bus changes to get from Hartford to Williamstown. Our shuttle driver had a 3 pm appt. so we couldn’t be late. But….we were. We got to Williamstown at 2:54. He kindly threw our packs in his trunk, drove about 3 miles down the road to where his appt. was, hopped out and said take the car to the trailhead and leave the keys inside. Wow! We were total strangers and he literally gave us his car. We made our way to the trailhead, donned our packs and were off. We hit the trail at about 3:30 pm. Right off the bat, we came up on trail magic. A cooler of cold water. We didn’t take any because we didn’t need any at the time. But, so nice of someone to leave it there.

We made our way the 3.8 miles to the start of the Long Trail. Caitlin took a spill on a bolder and literally bent her thumb nail backwards–ouch. It immediately turned blue. She was a trooper and toughed it out. She did, however, acquire the trail name “Thumbsucker” from the event. She immediately put her thumb in her mouth when she hurt it and her trail name was born.

When we reached the Long Trail sign, we met a couple young AT NOBOS thru-hiking. Sir Poops A Lot and Stacks. We took turns taking each other’s pics at the sign. We then continued on another 3.2 miles to the Seth Warner Shelter where there are about 15 people. Most are AT hikers. A couple women are just out for the weekend and a young guy already in his tent is hiking the LT.

We set up our tents, cooked our dinners, hung our bear bags and were down for the count about 9:20. Within 10 minutes of turning in, the rains started.

It was a good day. We covered 7 miles on the trail, but we’re really only about 3.2 miles along on the Long Trail.