Date: 2016-07-15
From: Seth Warner Shelter

To: VT 9
Miles today: 11.5
Weather: overcast clouds

I slept in a bit this morning and roused myself out of my sleeping bag around 6:45. Usually I'm up and packing by 6:00 but I knew that today was 'only' 11 miles and town was at the end of it. Town is always the best motivator! I also wanted to let the morning sun dry my tent a bit since it rained lightly last night. Saving those ounces!The only other northbounder thrus at Seth Warner last night were a retired couple that I met quite a while ago (at Darlington Shelter, just before Duncannon, PA) and who I like very much. They are consistently strong hikers and this is actually their second thru hike attempt - I guess the first ended with an injury a few years ago. They're awesome! They also offered me some excellent Trail Magic last night to accompany my cold instant mashed potatoes:Mmmmmm!Today was fairly uneventful. I leapfrogged with my thruhiker friends for a while, then they blew me away on the descent into town. I'm slower than usual while going downhill due to this stupid leg (and the last mile down to VT 9 is very steep and boulder-y). I wish it would heal already!Climbed Harmon Hill. Woo?Near the end of the hiking day I passed Congdon Shelter. My original mileage plan had me staying here tonight and heading into town on Saturday morning to meet up with Water Buffalo, but I did a few bigger mile days than I had planned and am ahead of schedule. I'm very happy that I didn't stay in this shelter or in the camping area. It's a pigsty!! Congdon is probably the dirtiest shelter that I've seen so far! I guess it's due to the fact that it's the second northbound shelter on the Long Trail and also only 4 miles south of a major road? In any case, there was trash and bits of discarded gear everywhere, holes in every part of the shelter floor, it hadn't been swept in ages (and I couldn't find a broom), and a very bold chipmunk was obviously living inside the shelter. It makes me sad to see campsites/shelters in poor condition. I ate my lunch snack and stretched my feet and continued on to VT 9. I had heard that it was a busy road and popular parking lot so we shouldn't have trouble getting a hitch into town. Well... it wasn't so easy. I stood out on the road, thumb on display, for about half an hour with no luck. I guess Vermont folks are busy getting places! No hard feelings here. Just as the three of us were about to give up and wait for the rumored free bus, a man approached us from the parking lot and asked if we were LT or AT hikers. Turns out, he hiked the LT and was willing to give us a ride if we could cram into his vehicle alongside his family! We happily made it work and all three of us got into town safely. The hotel that I had booked for Water Buffalo and I was SO FAR AWAY. I'd have never made it if I had to walk. Yikes.I'm lucky that those folks gave me a ride because immediately after I had showered and was getting ready to walk over to Hannaford to do resupply, it started pouring rain. I decided to wait for Water Buffalo to get here with a vehicle and do resupply then. I'm so glad that my dad is here! With my leg acting up and my motivation at a less-than-stellar level it feels great to be able to see some of my support team. He's going to slackpack me for the weekend to see if that helps my leg at all. Yes, I've decided to slackpack. No, I don't think it's cheating. My personal challenge is to hike the whole trail, not to hike it with a certain amount of weight on my back. I know there's a lot of debate about this issue in the hiker community but my opinion is simply HYOH. I have crazy amounts of respect for the folks who carry 30+lbs every day, but there are hikers who have 9lb base weight packs - that's ALL THEIR GEAR - and they don't count as slackpackers. So where's the line? My engineering brain decided that the line is completely personal... and mine includes slackpacking as 'legal'. Hooray!Ok, enough of the thru-hike purity debate crud. Look at this pretty post-storm sky!WB is here and we're going for Chinese food. It's tradition now!