Date: 2016-08-25
From: Minerva Hinchey Shelter

To: US-4 Killington, VT
Miles today: 20.4

Wakeup early cuz VT-Mike and I plan on stopping at the Whistle Stop cafe on VT-103 for breakfast. Turns out the Cafe, which is a landmark in Southern VT, is closing in September. The owner is turning it into a railroad museum.the Hiker Breakfast is awesome here and really hiker friendly people hereAfter breakfast we get back on the trail and hike to Governor Clement shelter for our midday break. The weather is turning bad, cloudy and windy with rain in the forecast. Seems every hike I do up here I get bad weather over Killington, and no different today.Killington is a popular ski resort in Vermont, 3rd highest peak in Vermont.we meet a lot of other SoBo At thru hikers at Gov Clement shelter as we take a break. It's a foggy, cloudy day with mist in the air and rain in the forecast.our plan is to get to the Inn at the Long Trail tonight, which makes this a 20 mile day for me.when this hike began, I never in my wildest dreams envisioned doing 20 mile days. I was thinking those days were past. But feeling pretty good, and hiking with VT-Mike and Bojangles motivates me to do it today.the climb up Killington is a trip hazard of rocks and tree roots, tough climb.VT-Mike has a problem with a swollen ankle, but he's still hiking well, he's not sure what he did to it. it's a very misty day on top of Killington, so no views today. We stop at Pico Camp for a short break and keep on hiking on the Sherbourne Pass Trail and arrive at US-4 around 6:30 pm, just at the Inn at the Long Trail.when we get there, Bojangles and I find out they are full for the night, no rooms. I see VT-Mike is here with his wife who drove over from NH. He says he will go into Rutland to get his ankle checked out tomorrow. As swollen as his ankle looked, and the way he is talking, I get a feeling he probably will decide to end his hike here. I think in retrospect if VT-Mike had not gotten injured, I would have been much more inclined to continue this LT hike further north and try to make it all the way to Northern Terminus. As it is I am dog tired and just want to get a shower and some sleep before deciding on whether to continue the hike.Bojangles and I have a couple beers and nachos at the bar. We missed the last shuttle bus into Rutland too and now it's dark. He starts asking me about sharing a motel room in Rutland, and I just don't do that with someone I've only known on the trail for one day. SO I wish him well and leave the Inn at Long Trail to head into Rutland. He says he is going to tent across the highway from the Inn, and I might have done same, except there is an intense thunderstorm blowing up, with lightning, and all I have on this hike is my silnylon tarp. I end up hiking west about 2.5 miles toward Rutland on the shoulder of the highway (oh yeah that was fun), and catch a taxi ride at a motel on US-4 into Rutland for the night at the Days Inn, where I've stayed before, across street from a grocery store.Long story short, Rutland is really the point where you either spend 2 more weeks on the trail to Canada, in increasingly remote areas, or get off here to take the AMTRAK back to Florida.I talk to Natasha on the phone and decide to end this hike here. There's a tropical storm forming in the Gulf, and I don't want her to be alone down there if this storm turns into a hurricane and threatens Panama City Beach. Plus, she tells me we are getting several house cleaning jobs added to our schedule the next 2 weeks, from late vacation reservations. I'm really happy with this hike, around 120 miles in 8 days, and the foot/ankle issues are gone. I feel like a new hiker, sure, very tired, but the operative foot did great. So I get an AMTRAK ticket online at the motel computer and it leaves at 9:15 a.m. the next day.I will fill in more here later with pictures, but the hike was awesome, met some really nice people. A year ago I wasn't sure I would walk normally again. Now back on the AT/LT. Lucky and very forunate to be able to do this again.happy trails