Date: 2016-07-16
From: Killington Motel

To: I Don't Even Know
Miles today: 32.0
Weather: clear sky

This is going to be a long one, one of my more interesting days on the AT although it mostly just involves a lot of walking.Woke up to an AWESOME breakfast at the motel. This was a real breakfast not some lame continental breakfast. Waited for the Post Office to open up and then went pick up my new kicks. This would be the shoes I'd wear up Katahdin , although I don't know if you could still call them shoes by the time they got to Big Mama K (spoiler alert if you are someone reading who didn't know, I completed the AT and am now just updating my very very very far behind trail journal).I started walking back to the trail around 11/11:30 and a car pulls up and ask if I want a ride to the trail head, it's Walnut and his mom who was visiting him! They drop me off to the trail head and Walnut gives me a beer! He was getting dropped of at the North Terminus of the Long Trail to hike it back to the AT and knock out both trails!It was a hot day but I was feeling good, finally. Few miles in I decided to stop and drink my beer while it was still cold. While I was sippin' a guy came rolling in and asked me if I saw another hiker carrying a Toy Sword. I had not, he asked my trail name and I got his , Breakneck. Continued on and bumped into Breakneck and some others later at a water source. I headed out, feeling good. I stopped at the Lookout, a cabin on private land with a really cool lookout on top, the owners allow thru hikers to stay there as if it were a shelter! I was tempted but really wanted to get to Hanover ASAP. I ate there and met a few more SOBO's and section hikers. I dropped a piece of cheese and a SOBO said "Man I'll take that cheese, I know your probably not going to eat it now". I said nah man I'm eating that and threw it in my mouth dirt and all haha. Hiker hunger is for real. I then headed out to the next shelter, it was 20 miles or so and set me up for 26 into Hanover the next day. I felt good but didn't know if I felt up to night hiking. A few more SOBOs came in and one had down the 26 from Hanover, I decided to push on. After a few miles I heard some guys behind me that eventually kept up, it was Breakneck, I was hiking pretty quick but they passed me however we ended up hiking about the same pace. Breakneck looked familiar, turns out he started a day after me and we had bumped into each other a few times early on (like GA/NC early) but never met. HE was hiking with Cold Tater's who was somewhat of a trail Legend for my bubble. Taters had started 2 days before me. I was just pumped to run into more people hiking around my pace! I asked them where they were headed and they said HANOVER! I was like damn that's crazy, would be over 50 miles for Breakneck and 40 for Taters. We ended up stopping at the same water source and they talked me into joining in. I probably should have taken it easy given my recent episodes but I was feeling good so I figured what the hell. I always wanted to hike a 40 and this would accomplish that for me. We pushed on Bs'in and jamming to Queen and eventually some bad weather started to show up and talk began of calling it short. I had just took a 5 hour energy and was ready to go bad weather or not but we ended up calling it a night with about 32/33 miles down for me for the day. There was also the issue that if we did make it to Hanover it was going to be around 4/5am and there was no where to really stay since we would be in town on Dartmouth's campus which did not offer/allow any places to stay for thru hikers, so it probably worked out for the best.