Date: 2008-08-03
From: Bennington, VT

To: Caughnawaga Tent Site, VT
Miles today: 14.4

Today started out very slowly...I felt very sluggish and lazy. I managed to wake up and walk across the street to Full Belly Restaurant and had lots of coffee, 3 eggs over easy, home fries, bacon and rye toast. I even got a large coffee to go and went back to the motel room and enjoyed that while I packed up all my stuff. Mrs. Gorp and I checked out of the room and started walking towards the east end of town with our thumbs out looking for a ride back to the trailhead. We got a ride in a pickup truck at the east end of town and got dropped off at the Trail parking lot on VT 9. It was 9:20am when we started walking north on the Appalachian Trail. We crossed City Stream right away and started a fairly steep climb of about 1,500 feet up Maple Hill. I was still feeling sluggish and lazy, so I walked really slow. I always know if I listen to my body on those hard to start days and go slow enough that in half an hour or so I start feeling better. That's exactly how it happened again today. We stopped at Split Rock for a short break, and then walked on to Melville Nauheim Shelter. We saw a cow moose just before we got to the shelter side trail! That's 1 moose so far this year, 0 rattlesnakes and 17 bear on this walk...been a good year and hoping to see lots more moose. :-) We checked for a register at the trailhead, but none was there, so we kept on walking. I was feeling like normal when we got to the top of that 1,500 foot climb. :-) We walked by Hell Hollow Brook and I got a picture of Mrs. Gorp crossing it on the footbridge. It started raining and ended up raining for about 3 hours. I loved it! It was cool and there were no bugs! It stayed in the 60's most of the day. We walked by Porcupine Lookout, but it was rainy and very foggy out, so there were no views. We climbed another 700 feet to Little Pond Mtn, the down a little to Little Pond Lookout and once again there was no view because of the foggy rainy day. We could see the lower part of Glastenbury Mtn from Glastenbury Lookout, but the summit was fogged in. It was clearing by the time we climbed another 900 feet up to Goddard Shelter.... just 3/10ths of a mile short of the summit. We got good cold spring water and went into the shelter to eat second lunch. We passed a sobo by the name of Sparkles just before we got there and Zack, Left Field and Mike were all at the shelter. Mrs. Gorp got a picture of the four of us inside Goddard Shelter. We walked on to the summit and up to the top of the old fire tower and had some pretty nice views. Those 3 nobos were planning on staying at Goddard Shelter. We walked on after taking some pictures from the fire tower. I usually tent on the summit, but we had lots of time left in the day, so we decided to keep walking for a while. Mrs. Gorp was right the other day when she said the moose probably moved to higher elevations...we saw lots of moose poop in the Trail. I kept looking around for another moose, but never did see another one today. We were at Kid Gore Shelter in 4 miles and decided to eat dinner there because it had started raining again. I had some split pea soup...my first hot meal on the Trail in months! It was pretty good. :-) This was the shelter where Mrs. Gorp got some great pictures of a porcupine that shared the shelter with her one day for lunch. :-) We walked on 1/10th of a mile and saw the wood piled on the ground that was once Caughnawaga Shelter. It is no more. I found a couple tent sites and set up my tent and crawled in for the night. It was a wet day...and those whiny '03 hikers would have been complaining about it, but it was one of my favorite days on the Trail in a long time because it stayed cool and there were NO bugs! :-) I'm laying in my tent right now, it's almost dark out and I think Mrs. Gorp is sleeping already.... another great day on the Appalachian Trail. :-)