Date: 2005-07-24
From: Bromley Mountain

To: Greenwall Shelter
Miles today: 22.6
Weather: clear sky

The Appalachian Trail through Vermont is very damp and muddy, with alot of ferns and wetland plants. It's kind of surprising to be because you don't really expect to see a marsh above 3,000 feet, which is where we are walking. Morel walked into the shelter last night after 10 o'clock under a red light. He had trouble getting a ride out of town.After that, I pretty much had trouble sleeping all night long. Both my knees were hurting, the left one especially. I had to keep changing positions alot. I called my doctor a couple of days ago, and he told me to double up on the ibuprofen. It has definitely taken down the swelling, but, in return, all the fluid that was cushioning the knees is gone and I have alot of sharp pains, especially on the downhills. We are sitting here now at the Peru Peak Shelter. I'm hungry, so I'm making grits. It's surprising how fast the build up from town food goes away. My energy level has been way up high this morning, better than it has been the last couple of days, mainly because I had 4 of Au Ma's sandwiches and half a dozen beers, and all kinds of stuff they had. I'm feeling pretty good this morning, but I'm pretty hungry. It seems like 2 days of not eating really, really well causes the energy levels to really drop. I need to start watching that. Maybe my body has reached the point where it's unable to store the energy anymore. I'll have to keep an eye on that. I was also thinking that, I know I'm pretty much going to slack pack the first two days through The Whites. I'm going to call Pack Rat when we get to the Long Trail at Hikers Welcome Hostel to see what other arrangements can be made. If there isn't any other slack packing, I'm also considering going ahead and dishing out the money and using the huts through The Whites and just day hike from hut to hut like alot of other people do. I'll just pick up my pack at the other end, or pick up the tent, sleeping bag, and food.That's an idea.I walked into camp tonight, extremely irritated and in a bad mood. The first reason being is that I thought, until we were 20 miles into the hike, that we were only walking 20 miles today. In reality, the shelter was at 22.6 miles, and a 3/10s of a mile walk in, and walking around looking for water, it turned into a 23 mile day. So, I threw a temper tantrum while OC1 sat there quietly and pretended he wasn't there. I was going off, saying this was the last 11 hour day, the last 20 mile day that I was going to do. I was slowing down from now on. Screw it, my target date is not August 31st. I'm going to slow down and do whatever it takes to enjoy it and make sure I finish. I was venting pretty badly. An older gentleman walked in a little after we did. He's a statistics professor from Harvard. We all tented inside the shelter. Another young man walked in just before dark. He's local, very friendly. He mentioned that Wallingford Pond was just on the other side of the mountain, half a mile away. Suddenly, I realized that I screwed up and this is where I was supposed to call Mrs. Gorp. I looked at the map and realized that the road that she was supposed to be picking us up at was only 1.4 miles away.I though about this for a while. I was beat. I knew I was going to be bad company. We had our tents set up, and we had already eaten. So I called her and asked her if she'd like to have breakfast at the Whistle Stop at Vt 103, about 7 miles away, at 9 am.She repeatedly offered to get us, so we could take showers, do laundry, and have a bed to sleep in. I asked Vern if he wanted to, and he really didn't care. So, I turned her down, which I think amazed her, it certainly amazed her husband, who was in the background. "What's wrong with those hikers? They are turning down a shower and a bed?" That's the way I left it, figuring we would keep on running. We would take our showers a day or a day and a half later at the Inn at Long Trail.We sat around and talked for a little while. I got into a better mood after some conversation. We went to bed, and once again, right around 9:30 pm, there was a light running around outside. Once again, it was Morel. He was looking for water. He just night hiked into the shelter again. I got out and pointed him to the water. I got back into the tent and tried to go to sleep.