Date: 2011-07-25
From: Clarenden Shelter

To: The Long Trail Inn lawn
Miles today: 18.3

(In which cross the 500-miles-to-go mark and I tent outside of an inn)I sleep in -- an extra comfortable sleeping pad and tent site away from others makes this dangerously easy -- and many of the hikers are already gone by the time I get up. At the shelter the ridgerunner sorts through a pile of abandoned clothes and gear abandoned by earlier hikers and asks if we want any of it, since she sill have to carry the rest of it out. Amid the miscellaneous junk I find a pair of Smartwool socks, brand new from their look and smell, and am delighted with the find.Shortly into the day I meet Natti and Bait, who got a ride to a road crossing from Fish, who is still hanging out with her friend BLT, and are waiting on Twoper, who is slackpacking the section they just skipped. I am happy to see them and chat with them for a while. Natti tells me there is now a love triangle going on between him, Fish and BLT. "You mean you and Fish are both madly in love with BLT?" I joke, and he laughs. "You cut right to the heart of it I see," he says. I consider waiting for Twoper with them, but they only plan on hiking a few more miles for the day and I know that I would feel restless if I tried to stick to their pace, despite my enjoyment of going slow, so I say goodbye for now and hope that I will see them again sometime soon.A few miles later I see a collection of hikers gathered around a hand carved sign that says "Katahdin: 500 miles". There is a cooler with ice and sodas and a logbook full of excited entries. Freight Train and Plan B are there with two sobos, and we celebrate the occasion in style with the soda -- the sobos celebrating the completion of their first 500 miles, and the rest of us celebrating the beginning of our last 500 miles. While we are celebrating The Mad Hatter, an '04 nobo who stocks the cooler, comes by with more soda, and we get a chance to thank him in person for combining trail magic with the trail milestone. Samir, a Long Trail hiker, comes up as well, and though the mile marker doesn't mean much of anything for the Long Trail, he still seems to appreciate the soda just as much as we do.It begins to rain, and rather than try the plastic bag trick again, I put the iPod away and hike tuneless for the rest of the day. I find a rhythm hiking at a fast, steady pace and stick with it. There's an inn with a bar and restaurant 18 or so miles in, so this gives me something to aim for. Though the iPod often makes hiking seem easier, I find that I do some of my fastest hiking without it, and that proves true today as I ride my rhythm and pass most of the hikers who started before me. Even on the slow train it is satisfying and useful to be able to hike quickly sometimes, and spend the time gained on other things, like restaurants.Shortly before the side trail to the inn the Long Trail, which has coincided with the AT ever since I entered Vermont, splits off to the left on its way to Canada, and the AT splits to the right, turning toward New Hampshire. I wave a fond farewell to all of the absent Long Trailers whom I won't be seeing any more, and then head onward toward the inn.I am dirty and smelly after a day of hiking in intermittent rain, but the Long Trail Inn bartender / owner seems not to mind, and is friendly to me when I sit down at the bar. He takes my order -- grilled cheese and a brownie sundae -- gives me the wifi password and points me to an outlet I can use to charge my camera battery. When I finish the meal he lets me know that there is indeed free tenting on his lawn across the street as the book had said, so I go over to set up my tent.I am impressed that an inn owner who rents rooms also offers free tenting, and is so friendly to hikers. I think that it is likely a wise business decision as well, as free tenting is unlikely to take away much business from those able and willing to pay for a room, and attracts hikers to the bar who otherwise wouldn't come or stay as late drinking. (I know I wouldn't have taken the 0.5 mile side trail if it weren't for the free tenting, so it was an effective technique for me at least.) Besides, the number of hikers who plan to tent and then end up paying for a room when it gets dark and rainy while they are in the bar is probably not insubstantial.Even though it is still drizzly when I finish my dinner, I set up my tent anyway, sticking with the plan. The lawn is a couple hundred feet from the inn, and when I realize that the edge of the lawn is still within wifi range I take down my tent and put it back up in the wifi sweet spot. It begins to rain, and while I normally dislike tenting in the rain, I would take rain nearly every night of the week if it came with free wifi.Tomorrow I plan to do one of my first 20+ mile days in a while, and to visit Patrick, a friend of my aunt.