Speck In The Woods

I’ve added 4 or 5 different posts today. I’ve noted each day and post separately. Sorry, but you will have to scroll down to start at Day 3 and work your way back up to the most recent Day 7, or it may be in Archives–not sure.

Mountain view from town

Day 7, July 6, 3 miles

I couldn’t really go any further without a resupply. I had to hike a mere 3 miles to get to a road that led 5 miles into town. The Ginger Twins needed to get into town to go to the outfitter to pick up a few supplies and I had made arrangements to stay at a hostel close to town. When I made my reservation and asked the owner how to get to his place, he said to hitchhike from the road. He said it’s safe and very easy cause the town is very hiker friendly. Mary, the Stratton Mtn. caretaker had told me the same thing, so the 3 of us stuck out thumbs out and within 5 minutes we had a ride from a very nice young lady (another Mary) who took us straight to town and dropped us off. I went to Price Chopper and bought food and to the outfitter to get socks. I lost a sock that I hung on my pack to try to dry and to keep the stench out of my pack, but apparently one fell off. So–I then had a total of 3 socks for the rest of the trip. Anyway, got all I needed and was walking to McDonalds and a girl with a dog asked me if I was going to the hostel. I said yes and she was going too. She is hiking The Long Trail and had hitched a ride into town to resupply also. Long story short, we are here at a great hostel. I have a room to myself. Michelle and her dog have a room to themselves, and there are 4 guys in the bunk room. I got a loooong shower (and the angels sang). I actually got my shoes dry today for the first time since I hit the trail, and I got to wash my clothes. Everyone gets free sodas and a free pint of Ben and Jerrys ice cream. Life is good.

Getting back to the trail fully loaded tomorrow at 8 am to head north. I need to click some miles off.

Don’t really like having to post 4-5 days at the time, but when I don’t have service, I can’t get it done.

Pretty plants

Day 6, July 5, 18.3 miles

Pop quiz:

What mountain was Benton MacKaye sitting on when he was inspired to propose the idea of the Appalachian Trail?
A. Mt. Greylock
B. Mt. Stratton
C. Mt. Killington
If you guessed B, you’re right.

Greylock inspired Mellville to write Moby Dick. I’ve climbed Greylock already and I’ve climbed Stratton already. I’ll soon climb Killington and I  Read More

Day 5, July 4, 10 miles

Who made this stinking mess? It was by a bog, so I’m guessing it’s a moose, but not sure. Any ideas? At first, I thought, “Wow, that’s a big deer,” but I’m thinking moose.

The hike started out great. I even said to myself, “Wow. I might get to walk with dry feet today.” Well—no such luck. After two hours, the rain started. It started sprinkling so I stopped and put my pack cover on. Within 20 minutes, it was a deluge. Not gonna say the M word, but my feet will never be the same.

I had planned a much longer day, but I took refuge in a shelter to get out of the freezing cold rain to try to wait it out. The rain continued until
after 8 pm, so needless to say I stayed in the shelter–yuk. I don’t like shelters. Some older fellow, trail name “What’s the Rush” and I were the only ones there for a couple of hours and then one-by-one, people started showing up until we had a full (7 people) shelter. One of the many reasons I don’t like shelters is all the snoring that goes on. It was ridiculous!!!! How do these people sleep through their own snoring. It would hurt your ears it reached such high decibels. Only the dead could know peace from such cacophony.

So–my July 4th was spent in the rain in the shelter. All’s well.

Shout out to Danny, Nathan and Seth for running the Peachtree Road Race.

Story Springs Shelter

Day 4, July 3, 14 miles

Ok. So I just called in my complaint to 1-800-waa-waaa and let them know I’m completely over this blooming mud. The powers that be of Vermud could care less, so this is the last time I’ll talk about, post pictures, or whine about the mud. But, just so you know, I hate it–I lothe it. And now I’m puting my big girl panties on and  zipping my lips about it.

There really haven’t been any spectacular views and there have been a lot of Read More

Beaver Pond

Day 3, July 2, 14 miles

Up early and the motel owner shuttled me back to the wet trail at 8 am. Today the forecast was for partly cloudy, but not rain–praise the Lord, Hallelujah, can you say Amen!!
The trail was still muddy, of course, but at least it didn’t resemble a river anymore. I still had to take it slow, but it wasn’t nearly as treacherous as yesterday.

I went straight one time today when I was suppose to have made a sharp right turn, and walked about 1/4 mile before I realized it, so I ended up doing 1/2 mile extra from that little mistake, and I hiked 1/4 mile down a blue-blazed trail to a shelter to stop for lunch and had to walk the 1/4 mile back to the trail, so I had 1 extra mile that I can’t include in my miles hiked today because those don’t count. This kind of stuff happens a lot. Hikers walk a lot of extra miles that don’t count.

I had two milestones today. The first was I

Entering Vermont

crossed into Vermont, or Vermud as it’s known by hikers. When you cross the MA/VT state line, the AT coincides with The Long Trail for 100 miles. The Long Trail was the first long-distance footpath and it covers 273 miles. It starts at the state line, and after 100 miles, it goes North into Canada and the AT splits off to the East toward New Hampshire. As soon as I crossed the line, there was a cute, young Read More

So I’m fine and still hiking but haven’t had cell service. I’m on top of a ski mountain so I have a little service to report in, but not enough to post. Have to get to town tomorrow for resupply, and battery recharge, so will post them.  Chow.

Day 2, July 1,10 miles

Yuk, yuk, and double yuk. A terrible night. About 12 midnight I heard a tree fall not far from my tent. It was quite an awesome sound, but it was a bit disconcerting. The ground is so wet, even live trees are falling. Then, at precisely 1:43 am, the sky opened up to a TORRENTIAL rain storm complete with a fireworks show of lightening and deafening thunder. The thunder and lightening subsided after about 30 minutes, but the hard rain continued, and at 4:50 am, the thunder and lightening started again. I felt like I needed to be busy about building an ark. Needless to say, it was pretty much a sleepless night. Read More

Day 1, June 30, 14 miles.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got up this morning, after a pretty good night’s sleep and it wasn’t raining. I returned the rental car, got a ride to the point on the trail where I stopped last year, and off I went. The weather was cool. It seemed a perfect day for hiking. I was down in the valley so I immediately had a climb right out of the gate. It was about a 3 mile climb with a pretty long decent and then another pretty good climb. At about mile 4, the sky started spitting rain. It rained the rest of the hike. The trail was extremely muddy, rocky and wet. I got slapped many times in the face by wet brush. It was actually a pretty fun day. When you have no choice but walk in the rain and slosh in the mud, it kind of makes you feel like a kid again.

I only saw one other hiker on the trail today, Light Horse, who came up on me at about mile 11, stopped to chat a second, and quickly left me in his dust. He was a young guy who was a thru-hiker.

When I got to the shelter no one else was here, but within about 15 minutes another young thru-hiker, Five, came in and by the time I retreated to my tent, there were 2 others that had arrived. I’m in my tent, Five is in the shelter, Bear is hammocking, and the other guy is tenting also. Five says he’s a ferocious snorer so I’m happy to be in my tent far away from him.

Rain, mud, roots and rocks–it was a great day!

And…….I’m off.

Here I am in Massachusetts just 5 miles from the trail. Today was travel and getting everything together to hit the trail in the Read More