Date: 2007-08-27
From: Hanover

To: Vermont!
Miles today: 0.0

Woohoo! I'm half a mile away from Vermont...441.9 miles so far, to be exact. I'm having trouble thinking about the stuff that's happened since I last posted, but I think that I'll be able to piece it together, here goes:Left Lincoln for a (really) short day past Lonesome Lake Hut, where Coffee paddled around the lake in a half-sunk row boat. I did not want to risk taking an unexpected swim, so I acted as the official photographer. We made it to the hut, where we proceded to leave some rather significant gifts for the paying guests. As we were headed out, I thought that I saw Roy walking up into the woods, so I shouted "Roy!" (a lot of good stories, some not appropriate for the general public begin like this). Roy turned around, laughed at my crazy Andre Aggase head band, and we split in an attempt to find a nice stealth site. A 1/4 mile from the Hut we set up camp (illegal to be camped within 1/4 mile of a hut...way to go, AMC), and had a blast sitting around the fire and everything. I really enjoyed wearing my long johns for the night...they were quite warm. The next morning we all headed out together, and when we reached Crawford Notch, Roy split to head off into town, and Coffee and I continued up the nasty climb to reach Beaver Brook Shelter. The waterfalls on the way up the hill looked nice, but it's no fun climbing 1800 vertical feet alongside of a waterfall...it was rather slippery, and it took every bit of the last remaining energy from the day to make it up the hill. One interesting thing that happened; I met up with Mellow, who I had seen with Mom on the AT down in Shennandoah National Park when we were staying in Luray back in June. He is planning to be in Central America when I would like to be there, it would be pretty neat to meet up again! Coffee was gone when I got up, but I headed over Moosilauke solo, which was a good time. I made great time coming down the mountain, and continued to run into quite a few NOBOs. Went to the Hiker's Welcome Hostel in Glencliff to grab some ice cream, and since I was making good time, I rolled into Ore Hill Shelter at around 3:30 in the afternoon, where I decided to cook dinner and head on to get in some more hiking. Halfway through dinner, a ton of thunder and lightening came up, and I decided that it would be best to stay the night not in the tent...good decision. Apparently, there were tornadoes near Hanover, 70 mile per hour winds and all kinds of fun stuff. There were a few times where we were at that we could hear the lightening whistle before we heard the thunder. Needless to say, the trail was not short of blowdowns after that! There were three NOBOs at the shelter while I was there, and they were good for some bits of advice and the like, but had just finished quite a bit of yellow blazing, so I'm not sure how much it was worth (I'm not counting on it too much).By 10am on the 26th, I was standing on the side of a road drinking beer, which was interesting. I hit a road crossing, and this old man, Highway Bob, pulled over and asked if I "wanna beyuh"...one turned into three, and it was a great time. He lit and tossed into the road what he called "kwatuh sticks" (presumably of dynamite), and the ensuing explosions were rather significant. Having eaten up 2 hours sitting on the side of the road drinking, all before lunch, I stumbled South and continued the journey...the day went well, but I came nowhere near hiking the 22 miles that I had hoped for. Camped at a trailhead parking lot with a kid from Isreal, who was pretty cool; I was able to bathe in the creek, which felt amazing. Woke up this morning and started walking, determined to make it to Hanover, and here I am. I had the pleasure of meeting and having my picture taken with The Flying Dutchman, who hiked NOBO back in 1955! It was really fun to talk to him and the group of people he was day hiking with. Town is nice, but there is lots of noise and things, it's a bit of a sensory overload! The terrain was really easy, but unfortunately, the views in the morning that would have been really good were obscured by fog I did hitch into Lyme in the morning to grab a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies and a medium bag of peanut M&Ms--1200 calories! Yum. I purchased a new book when I got here, and am looking forward to reading it, hopefully it will give me something to think about while I'm plodding along. I came across a family today who was hiking, intent on making it to Katahdin from Hanover, and I have a bit of advice for everyone who might ever think about hiking after talking to them: The man at the outfitter is going to try to sell you way more than you need. Just because someone works at EMS doesn't mean that they give sound advice...their job is to sell you as much stuff as they can. These people were loaded down with all kinds of extra stuff--there's no need for 2 pound mugs, zipping, insulated wrappers for your Nalgene and all that jazz. Talk to a through hiker, or look at a place like whiteblaze.net for some advice on gear; the dude at EMS most likely doesn't know what he's talking about. My pack weighs 23 pounds with 5 days of food, and a liter of water, and I'm walking all the way to Georgia...there's no need to have 65 pounds before food and water for a two week expedition, and cheaper does not necessarily mean heavier, either. Enough preaching, it's just really hard to see people burdened by so much weight! On to Vermont!!!