Date: 2014-06-30
From: Green Mountain House Hostel

To: Lost Pond Shelter
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: light rain

Fresh, Fletch, Stretch and I was taken back to the trail by the hostel owner Jeff, and up Bromley Mountain we went. I don't usually hike with others, but sometimes it makes the hike nice when you have something to talk about. Fletch is one of those rare hikers that is near my age, hes 36 and from England with a pretty obvious accent. We have the same pack, and talked about the pros and cons of it. He actually took off the brain a while ago and is carrying MUCH less than I am.We scaled Bromley and at the top was the ski lift that obviously wasn't running at the moment, but we got to sit on one of the chair lifts and enjoy the nice view and the cool breeze. Stretch ran into a girl somewhere who told him about an alpine slide down the hill from where we are and it's free for thru-hikers. Yay us! The four of us started down the hill, but only Stretch and I decided to go down the whole way to experience the slide. I'm so glad I did. They also had a zipline, which Stretch pondered, but eventually we decided to slide. As some of you seen on Facebook, I recorded the whole 2 minute and 20 second downhill plunge on my GoPro and what a ride it was. Fortunately, after we were done, we were able to get on the smaller ski lift which took us back to the top of the slide so we didn't have to scale the whole mountain. Thank God.Fresh was still on top of Bromley when we arrived back to the top, but Fletch hiked on. I had a chicken chunk pouch for lunch on top of the mountain and enjoyed the views a bit more before hiking on. The other 2 wanted to camp at Griffith Lake, but I felt like getting a few more miles in, so they headed on.Baker Peak was a nice view and an escape from the bugs due to the nice breeze. A solo girl hiked by and as usual I said hi and how are you? She seemed a little nervous as she grumbled and moved on by. Whatever. When I arrived at my destination for the day at Lost Pond Shelter, she was there setting up her tent. I said "Hello again", she said hi and settled into her tent at 6:30 never to be heard from again for the rest of the day. Very strange. It ended up being only her and I at the shelter area for the rest of the night, and as always I set up my tent due to my displeasure of shelters. I ate, climbed into my tent and started rereading A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, cause it was just sitting in the shelter.This book is being turned into a movie coming out in November of 2015. Robert Redford is supposed to play Bill in this fairly well written and most famous book on the trail. It's not my favorite of the AT books I read, but it has parts that make you laugh outloud, and parts that make up skip entire paragraphs if not entire pages. First of all, not that it's Bryson's fault, but on the cover is a quote from an idiot from the NY Times that reads; "The best way of escaping into nature is to read a book like A Walk in the Woods" Really? The best way to escape into nature is to read a book? Interesting. How about actually going out into nature? Early in the book he talks about the dangers of hiking the trail as he goes on and on and on about bears. Talk about being one of the last things to worry about, bears? Come on! However, after he goes on about the viruses, animals, lightning bolts, and other dangers, he quotes; "Finally, this being America, there is the constant possibility of murder" What? Only American people murder? The rest of the world just holds hands and sings some lame and awkward John Lennon song about peace, love and dope, while Americans, after 4th of July picnics and baseball games end the day on a murdering rampage? If you say so Bill. The other thing that gets me in his book, (now understand, this is only in the 1st couple of chapters) he talks about the reasons he WANTS to go, one of those reasons was that the trees were all going to die and everything below New England would become savanna due to global warming. Quote; "So if there is any reason to go, it was now!" Thank goodness you decided to hike in 1996 Bill, cause in 2014 I haven't seen a tree yet! (Rolling eyes, complete sarcasm). I'm not going to tell you much about the book, the movie will do that for you, it's worth a read, but there are better books about the AT for sure. It was getting dark and the book took me away from blogging, cause now I'm tired and hopefully going to enjoy a good nights sleep again risking not installing my rain fly. SOTD, Purple Haze, -Jimm........ You know who sings this!