Date: 2005-08-06
From: Consultation Peak

To: Glastenbury Mountain Observation Tower (3748 feet)
Miles today: 17.7

Up and gone by 8:05. A late start because we sat there and talked for a while. Interestingly enough Jason did a hike to the Summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa. It sounded like a great adventure. He was doing the LT because he only had a short amount of time and it's distance from start to finish fit in well with his schedule (less then 300 miles I believe)   We took a break about 10:30 on top of Harmon Hill (2335 feet) there was a nice vista there. I was contemplating a thought of going home for a week in the beginning of September. This was when both my wife and son had birthday's. My son was turning 18 years old that month and I would have liked to be there to celebrate it but, I knew it was best to stay on the trail. I planned to go in to Bennington, VT for a quick break and I figured I would call and ask my family what they thought about the idea, they agreed that I should continue on. This day was a weekend day and I knew they may be at home when I called. I always tried to call on the weekend regardless of where I was on the trail, even if it was just to leave a message.    When I got to VT-9 I hitched to Bennington and got a ride real fast. Jason hiked on, he was trying to get his hiking legs back. He was doing fine, he just was a little sore from yesterdays hike. An older woman picked me up and explained that her son was thinking about hiking the AT. I told her that he should do a little reading up on it, perhaps read some journal's from this Webb site and I gave her my e-mail address in case he had any specific questions. She was a nice person. Evidently there was some form of celebration happening in town. It involved Moose so there were a lot of dressed up Moose figures (quite large in fact) through out town. The town also painted a set of Moose tracks down the side walk to add a little humor to it all. I soon departed and hitched back to trail. I met a NOBO who gave me a ride to the trail head. He just finished the trail this past July (15th to be exact). His trail name was Jukebox and I remembered reading some of his log entries at the shelters. He was doing a little trail magic by giving folks rides out of town (thanks Juke Box). He was the first person I met who finished the trail this season. I figured there would be more, and there was.   I met another SOBO named Hound when I got back to the trail. I also finally caught up to Hazy Sonic and Firefly. I cannot recall meeting them before this however, their entries in the log books was real easy to recall. Hazy Sonic always signed his name and included a pipe with smoke coming out of it.    It was "hot O hell" and once I got back to the trail I took a nice dip in the stream that ran along VA-9. It was cool and clear, I also rinsed out my clothing and let them dry in the sun. After getting back on the trail I started hiking with Stilts, we met earlier a few days ago. Wow, he had some long legs, like his name suggests, he moved out like he was walking on stilts. He was fast but I could keep up with him. I would catch him either going up or down hill but on the flat portions I darn near had to run to keep up. Now with all the celebration in town involving the Moose, who would have guessed I would see my first "live" moose today.    At 6:05 when Stilts was out front he stopped and out his finger to his ear as if to say, "listen". Sure enough I heard it too. Bear?, I said. "No", stilts replied, "I think it's a Moose". He was right. To our left there was a Moose trying to get away from us by walking up and over some blow downs (trees blown over from the wind). It made a lot of noise and was gone within seconds. To Cool! Not enough time to get a picture though. This happened just before the Goddard Shelter (mile 1607.1). A nice way to end the day indeed. We were just entering the Pine Trees towards the top of the next mountain and Stilts said, "It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas". In time that statement was repeated many times over by yours truly. You knew you were close to the top (providing you did not have far to go linearly) when you hit the pines. If the elevation was way up there, the trees would get smaller and smaller, eventually you would hit a timber line and there would be no more trees (like in the Whites)   I went a little beyond the Goddard Shelter while Stilts spent the night there. It was a nice place but the trees needed to be trimmed to improve the view. I wanted to get to the Fire Tower on top of Glastenbury Mountain (3748 feet) because it was looking like there was going to be a beautiful sunset and I wanted to see it. Once I got there I dropped my backpack and went right up the tower. I yelled to the hikers that were already "up there" if the sun went down yet. It was so thickly covered in Pine at the top that you could not tell from the ground. I had about 15 minutes left and then saw one of the best sunsets on the trail (Sunshine and Camel were the ones on top of the tower). Their plan was to sleep up there that night. I told them that was a great idea, too bad they were there first. I joked and said "I could throw all your stuff over the edge", we got a good laugh out of it all. They did have the "room with a view" that evening. Camel knew I was a man who loved the vistas. He and I stayed on "Jump Up Ridge" many days ago when our friend Smoke was still on the trail. Smoke, Camel said, left the trail after doing 1000 miles. He and Camel were from the same home town and I told Camel to tell him, "congratulations on making it that far". Not many people can say they walked 1000 miles. Too True.   We had a nice fire that night. Camel taught me a nice way to blow air in to the fire (you're never to old to learn). Take your thumb and forefinger on each hand and touch the tips together (like you are holding something in between them). Then touch the thumb tip to thumb tip, finger tip to finger tip and make a small hole in between it all, Blow air through the hole and you will not believe the force you could create. It may take a bit of practice however, it is effective. I use that trick even today as I add wood to my wood stove. A great technique, especially useful in keeping your face out of the fire which is always a good thing.