Date: 2003-07-18
From: The Inn at the Long Trail

To: Red Barn on Vermont 12
Miles today: 23.5

23.5 miles from the Inn at the Long Trail on US 4 to Vermont 12 hopefully. I¢m still in the process of walking there. I should be there in about 20 minutes. It¢s about 6:45 right now in the evening. The reason I¢m walking this far tonight is because I met a section hiker named Daisy who says that there¢s a posting right by Vermont 12 here that says if you walk 12 mile down the road there¢s a red barn that some people are welcoming hikers to stay in and that they also slack pack hikers now. It¢s something I¢m very interested in doing in this section especially since from Vermont 12 it¢s gonna be about 23 miles to Hanover and I¢d sure like to slack pack to Hanover and get there tomorrow. Spiderman, on the other hand, elected to stay behind me about 10 miles at a cabin called The Lookout Cabin. He wants to score down. He doesn¢t want to get into Hanover too quickly because he¢s gonna have to sit there and wait 3 days. He feels if he¢s gonna spend money he really doesn¢t want to hang out in Hanover. I want to get in there although I¢m gonna miss my mail drop. Today is Friday and I¢m not gonna get there in time tomorrow to get it. It¢ll be nice to take a zero day there or even better I¢m hoping I can hook up with somebody, maybe through the outfitter, and be able to slack pack a couple of days out of Hanover. Maybe right into the Whites in New Hampshire. That would be fantastic. I¢d like to do that section without having to worry too much about what I¢m carrying and looking down at the ground all that time. I hear it¢s beautiful and it¢s something that I¢ve been looking forward to for a long time. At any rate¢¦.I got up about 6:00 and I took my backpack out front and sat in a rocking chair watching the sun come up. I did some sewing on my backpack. I have two waist belts mainly for comfort level. One is ripped off the other pack that I sent back. I sat there and sewed them together. I glued the little foam thingys to the ear pieces for my radio because they keep falling off. I just did some oddball stuff. An older gentleman came out after a bit and told me the coffee was done. So, I went inside and got some coffee. Other people were stirring around too. I got my coffee and finished sewing. I came back in just in time for breakfast to be served at 7:30. It was really nice because it¢s a bed and breakfast and the breakfast came with the room. They give you a menu and let you select what you want from it. I elected to have a V8 and an omelet which this morning was cheddar cheese and tomato and a few other things. Very good stuff. There was also some ham and home fries. I also had some more coffee. I sat with the older couple who had hiked last year and we chit chatted as we ate. I ended up leaving about 8:30 or so and I went up to the room. Spiderman was pretty much already packed and had hauled ass out. I went out shortly after and got on the Trail and started hiking. There have been a lot of ups and downs today and a lot of variety of forests. Rocks and roots and pine forest to brush and ferns. A lot of elevation changes. I reset my accumulated elevation climb this morning on the altimeter back to zero. Right now it is recording 4800 and 62 feet on ascents today. So, we¢ll mark that today as 4862. Anyway, I hope to be getting soon to this red barn soon or whatever it is and get some food and get some sleep and try to figure out what to do for tomorrow. That¢s it for tonight.