Date: 2009-09-04
From: Wild Camp North of Velvet Rocks Shelter

To: Lyme-Dorchester Road
Miles today: 17.1

I can't claim to have ferreted out the best camping spot last night. It wasn't exactly flat but I also thought it didn't look too steep either. I thought it would be OK if I lay across the slope. I thought wrong. The problem is you never really know until you lie down and by then its too late. I thought I'd just put up with it and read and read until sleep overcame me. But sleep didn't come as hoped and around midnight I gave in and headed out with the intention of swinging my tent round and pitching it downhill. I looked, I pulled out a couple of pegs, I thought a bit more, I decided it would be more effort than it was worth and instead I simply settled for what I had. It would only be one night. Once I did get to sleep, whenever that would be, everything would be (and indeed was) fine.The morning was misty, the sort of mist that brings what I refer to as 'condensation rain'. Its not really rain but you do get wet, not soaking wet but a pretty damp sort of wet. Recently, there has been a pattern of early morning mist in the valleys. Mostly I have been above it, looking down on it, but today I guessed I was lower down and instead of looking down on it I was surrounded by it. A different perspective, a different experience, vive la difference!It was a good morning, a morning of small ups and downs, a morning when I swung along easily, relaxed and content.I would have stopped at a nice spot atop Moose Mountain but it was already taken up by a group of Dartmouth College freshmen and women out on an 'orientation week' activity (the first of three separate groups I would pass today) and so I wandered on, finding my own little spot - not so sunny, not such a nice view, but quieter and peaceful. As I stopped I realised that I had fallen out of the habit of removing my socks and shoes during these rest stops. When did that happen? It was always such a blessed relief; well that might be putting it a little strongly, but it had always felt good to set the old feet free and to let them feel a little fresh. Somehow/sometime I had stopped doing this and more surprisingly I had stopped noticing and hadn't missed it. But today I noticed and so, for old times sake, I reached down to reestablished that old habit.The day had warmed up nicely and so as well as being short and sharp the climb up to Holts Ledge was also hot. Firefly had passed me as I stopped during the climb but I caught up with her again at a look out where we chatted, snacked and enjoyed the view.I stopped at Trapper John shelter to get some water and where one of the Dartmouth groups had apparently taken up residence. A tarp had been left, packs lying underneath it and the shelter was, more or less, completely 'reserved' by the sleeping bags they had left.I have a general problem with large groups; where ever they may be they tend to monopolise facilities but here they were also monopolising them during their absence. Great for them but definately a case of 'sod you jack' to the rest of the hiking community. The absence of the sort of day to day selfishness that I find so pervasive in 'real life' is one of the pleasure of being out here and so I was disappointed to stumble across this, all be it, rare example.This wasn't just any large group though, here the large group(s) were organised and coordinated by the Dartmouth Outdoor Club who are supposedly the maintaining organisation and the custodians of the trail from late Vermont to Kinsman Notch. I'm beginning to wonder whether they see this status as some sort of licence to treat this stretch of trail as their own personal fiefdom. They maintain it so they will use it for their own purposes; even when those purposes fly in the face of generally accepted backpacking principles and good behaviour. What I saw today is not , in my opinion, the actions of advocates for the wild, its not even actions of users of the wild, it is instead the, admittedly minor, actions of abusers of the wild.