Date: 2007-09-11
To: Seth Warner Shelter
Miles today: 7.2
Weather: moderate rain

mi. 7.2sleep shelterdest. Seth Warner Shelter day 61 Ahh it felt great to be back in the hammock last night. I need to work on the whole pad thing. Now I have a .5 inch foam pad. Great for insulation and for keeping water out of my pack. Bad for padding. I still prefer to hang. Sometimes through it works out better to sleep elsewhere. I got packed up and headed south at the usual time with Catz. About 10 minutes later it started raining. We were already wet, so kept on moving. I really like making some progress each day. Even 5 or 8 positive miles feels way better than zero. Plus it helps get me closer to the next resupply and food. I should have picked up more food yesterday, but I was thinking I would be in town today. I have just enough, so I'll have to see. Next resupply I am definitly going to pack some extra food. It seems like I either walk in with no food or lots of extra food. The hike over wasn't bad at all. I was pretty sick of walking in the rain by the time I got to the shelter. I would have took some really cool pics of a beaver dam, but I didn't want to get my camera wet. The trail goes right next to a 20 yard long beaver damn. The water level at the damn is just of waist level. The trail thankfully had bog bridges. The runoff from the damn was deep. I stuck my trekking pole in the water and it looked to be at least waist deep on me in places. Not something I like to hike in. I got to the shelter around 1pm. I found a guy sleeping. He had got there really late last night and was waiting out the rain. After talking to him for awhile I learned he was from Columbus, OH. Really close to my hometown. There seems to be Ohioians all over the place. I got into a dry shirt after getting water, but was holding off on getting completly into dry clothes. Catz rolled in shortly after. It didn't take long for us to decide to call it a day. I think he is as sick as I am hiking in the rain. So it was coffee, snacks , and coversation all around. I also was able to make some more progress in my book. This is the last time I get a thick book. I would already be in the next book by now. Although it makes a good pillow at night when I put it in my fleece pillow stuff sack. The rain finally stopped after 3pm. Last enough that I really didn't want to press on. That would put me in town late and afte the post office closed. We gathered a ton of firewood. There were lots of good size logs cut up close. I still think the shelters in VT have more firewood close to them than any other state so far. Catz is the man with getting a fire started. After a half days rain today and rain in the last few days, he still got a hug one going. I am learning a ton on getting one going. The northbounder from Columbus took of south when the rain broke. One of the unfortunate parts of section hiking. You have t make miles even i you d not want to. In his place though another rolled up. He was from Swissterland. A really interesting guy to talk to. He was saying that with the exchange rate being so good in his favor, it's really cheap to come over here and hike. We talked for quiete awhile. I am always curious about other countries and how they are run. Did you know that everyone there goes into the military. After training you spend few weeks a year in service. They also keep all their uniforms, gear, and guns at home. That way incase thy need to be called up, they already have all of their gear. That greatly speeds up the deployment time. That was put into place a long time ago when communication wasn't that good. Now people are trying to change that. Later on Mountain Mike rolled in. When it started to rain he decided to wait it out. Can't say I blame him. Tonight I decided to shelter it again. I didn't feel like messing with my hammock in the rain. Plus it was nice having the fire close and talking to everyone for awhile. Usually I go off in my hammock and do my own thing. Tomorrow town and Mass. I have to get more food. I am going to be really hungry when I get into town. Which means I will end up packing out way too much food.