Date: 2017-07-11
From: Glastonbury Firetower

To: Kelley Stand Rd
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: overcast clouds

I had gone to sleep with my rain fly partially open (for ventilation) and had to close it during the night when some light rain started. I woke up this morning to the gentle patter of tiny drops on my tent as the trees offloaded their stored rain.Lost had gotten a text from Sunny overnight and we had to get ourselves to a forest service road 11mi down trail by 1pm for extraction and transport to the party. 11mi would only take us about 4hr to hike, so it being 5am, we all rolled over and slept in a bit more.We hit the trail at around 8am, Lost once again breaking trail for us through the muddy trail and wet underbrush. We chatted throughout the morning about various topics: kayaking, cycling, hiking, and the terrain wasn't particularly tough this morning (though not "all downhill" as we had been lead to believe). We took a quick break at  Story Spring shelter and were happy to get a couple minutes of sunshine poking through the cloud cover.We reached the road at 1240 and hung out, waiting for our ride. Lost says she can smell us (and herself) so we must be getting pretty stinky. We also joked about how we could smell day hikers by their soap. A couple minutes after 1pm a car pulled up and out popped Sunny who immediately opened the trunk and offered us a beer or soda. We piled our packs in the back and hopped in (get it... hopped in? :P ) and soon we were flying over the dirt roads, twisting their way out of the mountains. It took about 45min to get to Manchester, only 20mi up the trail from where we had gotten off, and driving through town Sunny spotted a hiker walking and pulled over. His name was JustTim, an LT SOBO, and he commented how people don't usually pull over for him without him having a thumb up, and he was floored when Sunny offered him a ride and/or a soda/beer. Sunny explained that we were all hikers as well. JustTim passed on the offer, since he was getting lunch in town, and we headed up to Sunny's house.Sunny's place (or rather, his parent's place) had 3 stories and he led us around to the front where a line of backpacks sat along the entire front porch. Hiker party! We stepped inside and were greeted by a bunch of cheerful, clean hikers and the three of us made a bee line for the shower so that we could feel a little more presentable while hanging out. We also threw our laundry in and so I put on my rain jacket so that I could wash my camp shirt... rain jacket laundry being a not uncommon sight among hikers.Upstairs we were presented with a ton of fruit, veges, beer, and snacks and hung out until the 7 pizzas Sunny's parents had ordered arrived. We managed to restrain ourselves while a couple pictures were snapped and then we dug in, the 10 hikers devouring all but a few slices of the pizza. We hung out on the porch, enjoying the warm sun and view of the mountains towering above the valley spread out below.Sunny was nice enough to drive us down to the Price Chopper down in town so that we could resupply. When we got back and started consolidating our food into our packs I realized that I had almost filled my recently acquired 20L dry bag. Just goes to show, if there's space it will be filled. I'm addition to my resupply I also decided to pack out the last 3 slices of pizza for dinner... probably unnecessary but it would be better than anything I had packed and would save me from having to cook.At last the party was winding down and everyone was trying to get back to the trail or down into town to find a place to stay. Lost decided that she was going to zero tomorrow, so she managed to find a resident who will take in hikers and so headed off with them for the night. Socks and I, not feeling like we needed to and not wanting to zero here, got a ride back to the trail with Sunny. The ride back to the trail was wonderful, once again flying over the roads which wound through the mountains of Vermont. I sat with my window open, enjoying the feel of the wind in my face and taking in the sights. As we returned to the dirt roads on the final leg of our journey back up into the mountains the smell changed noticeably, the earthy scents of the forest clearly discernible as the temperature also cooled in the presence of the moist forest. To our right, the river tumbled downhill over the rocks next to the road, exposing massive boulders and having washed huge trees downstream along its course. We passed several secluded ponds, surrounded by dense fields of evergreen trees, some only visible for a second through a gap in the trees as we sped past. I'm trying here, but really, words fail to describe the beauty of Vermont. All too soon the ride was over and we were back where we had left off that day, a trail crossing of a small dirt road in the middle of the forest. As Sunny pulled away my ears seemed to ring for a while while they reacclimated to the silence of the forest compared to the roar of the car and the wind. We had 1.6mi to go until we hit the next road crossing, just beyond which I knew that there was some camping (from my last time through this way) even though AWOL didn't note any. The miles didn't take long, though the trail was exceptionally muddy, especially compared to our clean clothes. We found some TRAIL MAGIC... a bag of carrots... at the trailhead, but didn't partake in this unique gift because we had no way to use a carrot at the moment and were still pretty stuffed with pizza. At camp we found 2 LT NOBOs with their hammocks already setup and found a spot for ourselves right across the trail and next to a river where I erected my tent and Socks layed out his tarp and setup his sleeping bag. Our timing today had been just about perfect because we finished setting up in the fading light directly following the sunset and so we joined the LT'ers for a campfire. We had the fire going in no time thanks to some birch bark (its nice to be back in the part of the country where nature gives you the perfect fire-starter) and sat around chatting for a little while. I broke out the ciders that I had packed out, sharing one with Socks, and enjoyed my pizza dinner as we chatted. Eventually though, a little before 10pm, waaayyyy past hiker midnight, both Socks and I were having trouble staying awake and decided to hit the hay (or pine needles in this case). We hung our bear bag with some trouble, struggling to hoist the heavy food and overcome the friction of the rough pine bark before finally getting it up there.