Date: 2013-08-06
From: Stealth Camp by south fork of Hewes Brook

To: Betsy and Bills house in Norwich Vermont
Miles today: 16.0

Day 31, August 6th. Stealth camp by south fork of Hewes Brook to Betsy and Bills house in Norwich. 16 miles.Pay it forwardIt was a relatively warm, sunny morning and the hiking was easy with one little bump over moose mountain then a downhill stroll all the way into Hannover. The trail was fabulous, well graded and mostly dirt and pine needles with few rocks or roots. There was even a trail magic cooler, though it was nothing but empties by the time we got to it.We made good time and pulled in to town at 1pm. Hannover is super hiker friendly, the trail runs straight through town which has free public wifi curtesy of Dartmouth, and there's tons of nice people. The first thing the trail passes as it enters town is the food co-op so we stopped and resupplied. They had just about everything in stock and I'm happy with the food I bought, it feels like I got the right quantity of everything, though I did have to leave some goldfish and wheat thins in a hiker box. When we were shopping and outside repackaging all our food we had multiple people as us questions about the trail and wish us luck. One older gentleman even bought us a pair of clif bars and told us to eat up!After that we made our way through town to the Dartmouth Outing Club building where we used the computers and sat around for a while. They had a list of people in town who open their homes up for hikers to stay overnight so we started calling names on the list before Betsy picked up and said she could take us for the night. Her house was directly on the trail, across the Connecticut river in Norwich, Vermont.After that we went to EBAs, a pizza place that was having their Tuesday night pizza buffet. I do like buffets. 10 slices and three glasses of Coke later we moseyed back to the DOC where I realized I had phone service for the first time in a month. Hallelujah! I called my parents up and filled then in on the a plan for getting me home. I'll spend three and a half days hiking to Rutland, catch the Saturday evening train to NYC, spend the night in the city then take an early morning bus to Pittsburgh. Less than 24 hours of travel to get home. Not bad. The tickets are booked, now we just have to get to Rutland!With all that wrapped up we went over to Betsy and Bills place. They are a super nice couple that I believe sectioned most of the trail and had a son around my age who thru hiked the whole thing a few years ago. There was also a nobo couple, Honeybun and Stinkbug there as well. They're from Altoona so we're automatically Pennsylvania buddies. Stinkbug recognized my quilt as an enlightened equipment one and we chatted about that for a bit since he has a 0 degree one back home that he said keeps him toasty warm during the winter reinforcing my desire to get that 10 degree one. We all went to work stacking piles and piles of firewood as the sun went down. Betsy and Bill stockpile enormous piles of wood for the long Vermont winters, and we were happy to help out since they were putting us up for the night for free.After showers and laundry we chatted for a bit before bed, and Betsy explained how trail angels had really helped their son when he got injured during his thru hike and now they just wanted to help and pay it forward and asked us to do the same. Simple as that. Eventually we all drifted off to sleep in the basement which had multiple inflated air mattresses already laid out. A great day with good people came to a close.Pay it forward.