Date: 2008-08-31
From: Lake Pleiad, Middlebury Gap

To: 1.5 miles south of Sunrise Shelter
Miles today: 0.0

Long Trail 11.5 milesI started my day off with 24.8 ounces of Stumpknocker's Blend coffee and watched Lake Pleiad come into morning light from total darkness. It was a nice way to start the day...watching a few fish hit the surface going after some bugs for breakfast, then the mirror effect of the trees on the other side of the lake and finally some small waves forming from the morning breeze that started kicking up.I got packed up and Yolanda Vega was ready, so we headed south on the Long Trail. We had over a two mile climb to the summit of Worth Mountain. I saw a nobo coming and we just nodded as we passed by him. He said the bush was still wet this morning and his friends were coming up behind him. We walked on and in about 20 minutes came up to two other nobos. The first one was Itchy Foot '03 and the other was O2BeeHiking '06. That's when I realized that I knew the first nobo I had passed this morning too...it was Just Do It '03. I knew him, but it's been a number of years since I last talked to him. Itchy Foot AT¢03 and LT¢08 O2BeeHiking AT ¢06 and LT¢08We talked about other '03 hikers and about how nice the weather was that year. When I mentioned that I thought that was the year the Jan Liteshoe walked the Trail, Itchy Foot's mind went blank. He didn't remember Liteshoe until I told him how she was one of the BIG whiners of that '03 bunch. Then he just rolled his eyes and said something about her giving some of the "better' hikers of '03 a bad name. ;-) We walked on and stopped at the side trail to Sucker Brook Shelter for a late morning snack. We climbed Romance Mtn, then up to Gillespie Peak, then on to Cape Lookoff Mtn and finally up Mt Horrid. We were on our way down to Brandon Gap when we passed one hiker, then Yolanda Vega saw an old friend right after that...Don Pelletier. Don and that first hiker were together. Yolanda Vega gave Don a hug. I knew we were going to be there a while, so I got out my snacks and sat down on my backpack and started eating. :-) Don and Yolanda Vega had hiked most of the AT together back in 1977, so there was lots for them to talk about. We stayed about an hour before Don and Joel headed north and we finished walking down to Brandon Gap. We both wanted something more to eat than what we had in our packs, so we hitched a ride towards Brandon and got dropped off at a small deli about half way there. That was nice!! We both had a 12" roast beef sub, chips and soda. :-) Yolanda knew another Pelletier that lived nearby...no relation to Don Pelletier though. She called Steve about a ride back to the Trail and although Steve was gone, his wife Kay came out and took us back to the Trail. We got all that done in just over an hour! The only bad part was that a motorcycle had gone down on the curvy road just west of Brandon Gap. There were already a bunch of people around with cell phones, so we kept going. We did hear the ambulance coming up the mountain after we got started walking again. Sure hate to see anything like that happen. We walked on to Sunrise Shelter and stopped for another break. There was a small moose antler there. I signed the register and we walked on till we found a good camp site and set up for the night. Another great day on the Long Trail. :-)