Date: 2022-07-12
From: Green Mountain Hostel Mile 1655.2

To: Lost Pond Shelter mile 1670
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: clear sky

I woke up around 615 to the smell of cooking sausage. Papa Smurf was making some breakfast burritos with egg, cheese, hashbrowns, sausage and I had two. I also had two waffles as well. Was really craving OJ which I forgot to get at the store.One of the guys that works at the Hostel dropped the three of us and August off at the trail head a little after 730. As we were getting ready to leave, Never Better walked up who we haven¢t seen since Shenandoah. Apparently he got injured and had to take some time off and has since changed his trail name to Continuing On (I believe). Immediately after leaving the parking lot we started the climb up Bromley ski mountain. A small portion of the AT shares one of the ski slopes up at the peak. I had noticed a water jug in the Ski Patrol hut and went in to see if there was a water cache. As I entered I was startled by Grits who was making morning coffee after spending the night at the Bromley mountain shelter. The power was on at the Ski Patrol shack but there was no water.We descended down to a parking lot where there was supposed to be a water cache. We found 3 gallons of water left and also ran into Crush who we thought was several days ahead of us. Apparently she had gotten off trail for a family event which is how we managed to catch up. We then climbed up and over Styles Peak and also (it looks like) Peru Peak where I hit the 800 mile mark of my journey. We made the obligatory 800 mile marker and did the photo op. We went through several wilderness areas today Lye Brook, Peru Peak, Big Branch. These were created in 2006 and it¢s not clear how many more there are. Following that we headed to the Peru shelter where we ate lunch and talked with a bunch of people about the impending thunderstorms. We were trying to figure out the exact timing of the storms since we were about to go over a peak. It looked like the storms would hit after we got to the next shelter so we decided to head out and wait for the storms to pass in the next shelter. We had one more climb over Baker¢s peak which involved a rock scramble. As we¢re climbing that, we¢re hearing thunder in the distance and I worked hard to make it up and over the peak before any storms appeared. Fortunately we are able to make it over the peak and were on the descent with about 1 mile to go to the shelter before the thunder really started to get close. At that point Orchid and I put on the afterburners and started speedwalking and jogging down the trail to try to get to the shelter before the rain started. We made it to about a quarter mile from the shelter before it started to rain lightly. We got a little wet but managed to get into the shelter just before the heavy rain started.Inside the shelter we found Scavenger Princess and 3DM who we had hiked with a couple of weeks ago along with a overnight hiker. Even though it happens regularly, I still find it weird/amazing that we keep meeting up with people that we thought were way ahead or way behind us on the trail, but it¢s deafly cool to keep seeing them.We spent some time chatting with the three of them before Grits, Crush, Cap¢n Crunch, and finally Pilgrim arrived at the shelter. All of them were pretty wet. After the first two cells passed, everyone else but Grits and Crush pushed on to the next shelter. We were waiting until 5 o¢clock to decide whether to stay or go. Another brief squall passed by about 430 and then we made a decision, along with Crush, to stay. Naturally a couple minutes later the sun came out and we saw blue skies. Grits ended up eating dinner at the shelter and then pushing on about an hour later. It¢s amazing how much space four damp and wet hikers can take up when you¢re trying to get set up with wet clothes in a shelter. At one point it wasn¢t clear that all four of us could actually fit in the shelter with our stuff, although the shelter was designed for six. Overall we spent a couple of hours chatting with everyone, which is a lot of fun as this is a great group to hike and camp with.Around 9 o¢clock as we were all falling asleep a large Boy Scout troop came into camp and set up in the tenting area. They are actually pretty quiet, but all of them had their headlamps on bright and kept shining light in the shelter. I woke up around 11 to roll over and it look like I saw them all coming back from a moonlight hike. Not sure where they would have gone, but I don¢t think there¢s any views anywhere nearby other than Baker Peak. They were asleep in the morning so we were not able to ask them.Steps 28300Weather Forecast: 83/59 with rain