Date: 2011-07-20
From: 0.4 miles past Kid Gore Shelter

To: 0.2 miles past Stratton Mountain summit
Miles today: 11.7

(In which I say goodbye to Chickpea and sleep under the stars)In the morning I play some Julianna Barwick for Chickpea on my speaker, and the ethereal sounds fit perfectly with our forest surroundings. Despite the late night we get an earlier start than yesterday, and are out hiking by 10am. Having pulled a long day before, we can now afford to relax and indulge Chickpea's endearing habit of stopping to study the trees and listen to the birds. We see plenty of moose droppings on the trail (round pellets like goat poop but bigger), and pass several ponds that look to be prime moose territory, but do not actually see any moose, much to my disappointment.We stop for a leisurely lunch at the first and only shelter of the day, and Chickpea, living up to her name, gives (guy) Sherpa a tortilla with humus. Sherpa and Sprout just returned to the trail after five days off, and Sherpa is still mentally and physically readjusting to the trail again. I sympathize, recalling my difficulties in returning from just three days off in New York. The shelter has an excellent spring ("a bad-ass spring", as a southbounder described it to us), and Chickpea copies my practice of drinking spring water straight, without adding chemicals. The water is cold and delicious, and Chickpea seems to appreciate it even more than I do. "I think drinking spring water is my favorite part of hiking," she says, and while I can't tell if she is serious or not, I do believe that she enjoys it a great deal from the way she savors every drop.We continue our slow and easy pace to the parking lot where the car is waiting, and I'm glad that we are able to close out Chickpea's trip with a more relaxed and laid back day of hiking than yesterday. I hug and take a few more pictures of Chickpea, and then we say goodbye and she drives off. With only a couple more hours of daylight left and plenty of energy, I set out back on the trail at triple the earlier pace.The upcoming shelter and campsite both have fees, an ominous foreshadowing of the vile AMC hut system to be encountered in the Whites, so I hope to sleep atop the earlier Stratton Mountain fire tower instead. The book mentions that camping is not allowed on the summit, which I'm sure makes sleeping in the tower itself especially not allowed, but I've been wanting to sleep in one ever since Shuckstack, and am inspired by Capt. Planet's night on the previous firetower as described in the last logbook. When I reach the tower and climb up it, however, I find that sleeping is not so much disallowed as impossible, since the enclosed platform has been completely boarded up and sealed off.With the light rapidly fading I hurry forward on the trail until I find a nice semi-clearing among the pine trees. The spot is not quite wide enough to easily set up my tent, but long enough to lay down on. A steady breeze keeps the bugs away and the sky is cloudless, so I decide that this would be the perfect night to try sleeping under the stars. The ground is a soft and spongy bed of pine needles, and I'm surprised by what a different experience it is to set up and spend time in a camp that doesn't include a tent. It feels like being a part of the forest rather than isolated from it, and if it weren't for the near universal bugs I would try to make a habit of it.With cowboy camping soon to be checked off my list, I think about what other experiences I would like to have before I finish my hike. Sleeping in a fire tower is surely one, as is seeing a moose. Another, perhaps more easily attainable, is to complete Buffalo's 30-hour challenge.An early slow train spoof of the 30-hours of consecutive hiking challenge, Buffalo's version involves setting up a tent away from a town or shelter and staying at the campsite for the next 30 hours. (Going to a water source or into the woods to use the bathroom is permitted, the idea being only that you zero in the woods as opposed to in town or at a shelter.) Despite not sounding very challenging, taking a zero in the woods (or two back-to-back neros, which could count for the 30 hours) is actually exceedingly rare, and Buffalo is the only hiker I know who has done it. (Twigg was inspired by Buffalo's challenge to stay at a lake in PA for 30 hours, but since he slept in the shelter, his was a different variant.)My camping spot is nice enough that I would consider trying the 30-hour challenge here, especially since my Green Mountain Hostel reservation is not until two nights from now, giving me some time to kill. But I suspect that the "no camping" sign on the summit probably refers to clearings 0.2 miles away as well, and plan on being gone in the morning before I find out.