Date: 2004-07-30
From: .5 mi Short of Pine Cobble Trail (Redwood Motel)

To: Congdon Shelter
Miles today: 11.8
Weather: few clouds

VermontMileage Countdown: -582.2One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that there is a 'bad weather' around the place where I hurt myself. A bad weather trail can be used by thru-hikers and still 'count' as hiking the AT, if the weather is such that the hiker is in danger of injury from slipping off of boulders or being blown off the trail. Obviously the boulders were slippery yesterday, but not sufficiently to warrant taking a detour. My injury was caused by my own lapse in attention.As I was going up again this morning towards that ridge, I realized that there was another option that I didn't think of yesterday. Recall that I was nearly to the top. I could have simply continued climbing the short distance left, and then come down the bad weather trail, which almost certainly wouldn't have been as treacherous as retracing my steps down the boulders as I did. It probably wouldn't have taken any longer as well. And there would have been an additional bonus as well. There is a trail that branches off the bad weather trail and goes directly into Williamstown, which would have made my walk back to where I left the AT this morning from the cheaper motel no longer than what I actually did. However, I didn't know about that option yesterday, and am quite happy with the way things turned out.Getting back to this morning's hike, as I was approaching the bad weather trail I was wondering whether I should bail out and take that to the top, or take the regular trail and risk slipping again. When I got there I forged ahead, thinking I couldn't be afraid of scrambling up slippery boulders from now on, since there would be many more of them ahead. I did, however, make sure that my attention stayed on the task at hand, climbing the boulders, and didn't wander off on some ponder that struck my fancy.Soon after reaching the top I encountered Cindy, who is day-hiking the Long Trail this summer. The LT is coterminous (proper usage?) with the AT from the MA/VT border to near Killington, VT. Thence it continues north to the Canadian border while the AT turns northeast toward Hanover, NH. They are the same path for approximately 100 miles.When I got to the border there were three familiar faces there; Boonie, the first thru-hiker I met on the northbound leg of my hike; and Tree Frog and AD, whom I met on my slack pack around Front Royal. I walked in to Harpers Ferry with Boonie, but hadn't seen him since that day because he zeroed there and I skipped ahead in PA. I hadn't seen the other two since Duncannon, for the same reason, a zero day. I will jump ahead of them by one shelter tomorrow, but expect to see them in Manchester Ctr when I do a nero (near zero) day there. (Besides the three of them, I am with Mouse and Palm Tree at the shelter tonight.)I leapfrogged with Cindy most of the day, overtaking her on the uphills, letting her scoot ahead going down. I unexpectedly caught up with her at the bottom of a hill, where there was a pond off to one side. She was taking a picture, and when I looked where her camera was pointing I was surprised to see two moose. They were not huge with horns, but they were surely moose, something I wasn't expecting to see until Maine.Milestone: I reached my 12th state today, Vermont, finally getting to northern New England. That's 11 down, 3 to go. I was surprised at how long it took me to go through MA. With the planned 5 day hiatus and the unplanned nero yesterday, it was 13 days from when I entered the state until I left it.