Date: 2008-08-10
From: Mrs Gorp's Excellent Hiker Hostel, Wallingford, VT

To: U.S. 4, Killington, VT MrsGorp's Excellent H.H.
Miles today: 15.5

I woke up today and put a 12 cup pot of Stumpknocker's Blend coffee on. I love good strong coffee!! I got to thinking about what my ol' buddy Chief was probably doing right now....while I was drinking my good, strong coffee and getting ready to go walk over a 4,000 foot mountain with an 80% chance of heavy rain again. I figured he was tucked under the covers in bed nice and tight up here in a VT motel and wishing he was back at home with his lovely wife, waiting on her to bring his morning chamomile tea. I see in his journal that even some of the other '03 "Whiners" are ashamed of my ol' buddy Chief. Well, I had my good, strong coffee, a couple egg sandwiches and Mrs Gorp and I headed out to the trailhead to climb a mountain. We parked a car at Lottery Road, then drove Mrs Gorp's car to US 4 at the Killington trailhead and started walking south on the Appalachian Trail at 8:50am. I heard my name called out and it was Forecast and Aggie, just getting ready to walk into the woods on the other side of the road. They are 15.5 miles ahead of me on the Trail now. ( I've been busy dropping off Chief and picking up Chief ) :-) We had a 2,100 foot climb to make....through mud, deep mud and wet trail. It was a beautiful start to the day. The sun was actually shining through the leaves for a change and it was 58 degrees. Some of the fungi growing in these wet woods in VTMrs Gorp is a volunteer Trail maintainer, so every time we came to something in the Trail that we could move, we did. We had climbed about 700 feet and walked by the side trail to Churchill Scott Shelter without stopping. We climbed another 700 feet and passed Jungle Junction, then ran into three nobos...Earthbound, Hot Tang and Long Shot. We talked to them a while and they said they had heard of me...I was the nobo who had to get off Trail for a couple days to rescue some pathetic hikers. Boy, news REALLY does travel fast up and down the Trail!! ;-) We walked on, still climbing and started hearing some thunder in the distance. We got to Cooper Lodge and I took a picture of Mrs Gorp in the doorway, then we climbed up to the tent platforms nearby and ate lunch there. Mrs Gorp at Cooper Lodge on KillingtonWe had just sat down when I heard hikers coming. I looked as they were coming out of the woods and I knew both of them! It was Purple Rose and ZigZag. I had met them the first time about 5 years ago when they were just starting to section hike the AT....and now I run into them on the Trail again just as they are about to finish the AT. They only have nine more days of walking and they will have walked the entire Appalachian Trail!!! I would normally mention here that they are 70 and 75 years old, and are out here walking through all this wet weather and muddy trails, but I don't want my ol' buddy Chief feeling any worse than he already is....so I won't mention that they are 70 and 75 years old and out here walking through all this mud and wet weather. ;-) We all sat on the tent platforms and had lunch. That was fun! ZigZag, Mrs Gorp and Purple Rose eating lunch on a tent platform on Killington Mtn...just before it rained the rest of the day. :-)We could hear the thunder getting closer and the skies were getting darker, so when we finished eating, we all headed on. They walked north and Mrs Gorp and I walked south. It wasn't too long before we ran into two nobos that I hadn't met yet...Roll and then Rock. You would think that Rock would lead, so they could be Rock and Roll. It started raining fairly hard and ended up raining on us for the next 4 hours of the walk down Killington and out to Lottery Road. I got to thinking of Chief again and was happy to know he was sitting this rain out in his discount motel room somewhere. He's not good at much, but the boy KNOWS how to stay dry!! :-) We were walking along and ran into HiLo and Steadfast. I hadn't seen them since back in PA. I'm really proud of those two girls....they just keep pluggin' away and moving north towards Katahdin. The Trail really became a mud pit when we got done descending Killington. We had about five miles of walking through mush. We passed by Governor Clement Shelter where some boy scouts had taken over the shelter and had a nice fire going. They were in for the night. We walked on and Mrs Gorp forded Gould Brook and got some of the mud off her legs. I was able to rock hop it because I still had both my hiking poles for balance. Oh yah, I forgot to mention that I broke one of Mrs Gorp's hiking poles in two back on the climb up Killington. We had stopped to clear a fair sized tree out of the Trail. I picked up one end of it and shoved it off the Trail. I was real happy because it was a pretty big tree. What I didn't realize was that I dropped that tree right on Mrs Gorp's hiking poles and one of them went flying off in two pieces. That's when she mentioned that time I had sprayed her with pepper spray and the time I accidentally drank all of her beer and now this...I broke her hiking pole in two. Boy, she doesn't forget anything!! :-) The Trail was really overgrown in the open areas just before we got back to Lottery Road, so not only were we walking through some deep mud, we were being snared by briars and having to duck and weave our way through all that mess. We got to the truck, went and picked up Mrs Gorp's car and headed back to her home. I stopped at the gas station to fill up the truck and was amazed...gas prices have increased a lot!! When did that happen? Hummm. We had grilled hotdogs and corn on the cob for dinner, then some good, strong coffee and pie and ice cream for dessert. :-) Another great day on the Appalachian Trail. :-)