Date: 2011-07-27
From: Patrick's House

To: Happy Hill Shelter
Miles today: 16.9
Weather: light rain

(In which I hike an easy day to the last shelter in Vermont)Patrick cooks a breakfast of pancakes, and we have grade B dark amber maple syrup on top. The syrup is incredibly rich and delicious, and before we leave to go back to the trail Patrick gives me a bicycle water bottle filled with the precious amber liquid. The bottle must weigh more than a pound, but I can't turn down such amazing syrup and will drink it straight if no other use presents itself. On the drive back to the trail Patrick tells me about hitching across North American in the '70s, and his stories make me realize that the thru-hiking culture is about as close to the adventuresome freedom of the '60s and '70s as you can come in this decade. When he drops me off he offers to put me up for another night when I pass through Hanover, where he works. I am tempted, but don't want to pass up the adventure of whatever new experiences Hanover might offer either, so I don't commit to anything.I see two southbounders in the morning, but otherwise have the trail to myself. The trail starts out still wet from yesterday's rain, but soon dries in the morning sun. Around lunch time Arrow catches up to me, having stayed at a shelter I passed by yesterday during the storm. We hike together for the rest of the day, alternately chatting and listening to our iPods. We follow a sign to a shelter for a break. The book says the shelter is only 0.1 off trail, but the sign for the side trail has two hand scrawled annotations, one claiming 0.4 and the other 0.6. Such claims are often based more on how far away something *feels* than what it actually is, and neither of us are in a hurry, not planning on making it to Hanover tonight, so we decide to check it out.The side trail heads downhill for a long time, getting progressively wilder and more over grown, so that we're not entirely sure we're on the right trail until another sign promises a shelter up the trail. By the time we reach the shelter 0.6 no longer seems like such an exaggeration, and when we check the book again we realize that we accidentally followed the side trail for an old shelter no longer on public land, which the book acknowledges is 0.5 off trail and available at the discretion of the land owner. Having walked that far we take a long break, lying down on the shelter floor with our heads propped on our packs.We stop at the next (actual) shelter too, just to check it out, and then head down the trail to the town of West Hartford and its deli. Inside the deli / general store I buy my first bottle of Moxi soda on the trail, cheese puffs and a grilled cheese sandwich to die for, melted deli cheddar oozing out the sides. In addition to his giant Thru-Hiker Special sub Arrow picks up three 24-oz Labatt Blues to pack out to the shelter. He rolls the cans up in his blue foam sleeping pad, creating a four inch thick shell of insulation, and stuffs the sides with the crumpled paper bag.We take it slowly up the shelter, with Arrow's extra four and a half pounds and plenty of time left in the day. When we get to the shelter the only two occupants are already in their sleeping bags. We greet one of them, who introduces himself as a southbounder, but before we can get his name a voice from the other sleeping bag calls out loudly, "SOME people are sleeping here." It's not yet 7pm, and the use of the plural seems a bit exaggerated, but we defer to the hiker and retreat to a tent site away from the shelter.Before we leave we infer from the log book that the would-be sleeping hiker is Cimmaron, the 89 year old hiker whom I had yet to meet. Though he started not too long before me, I passed him at the NOC without seeing him, and heard that he recently flip-flopped ahead to complete the Whites and Maine before the weather started getting cold. By most accounts he is supposed to be a proud and cranky old man, so the encounter seems fitting, and I am amused but unsurprised to find that he signs his registry entries with "Cimmaron, the 89 year old hiker". Still, attempting a thru-hike at 89 is something worthy of pride, and I admire his gumption.Arrow builds a fire at our tent site to help keeps the bugs away and provide some pleasant atmosphere. Getting the fire started takes some time and effort since all of the wood is still wet from yesterday, but between the two of us -- I provide helpful encouragement from my seat on a log and Arrow does all the work -- we get a nice blaze going. I write in my journal and Arrow drinks his Labatts, and we both agree that a fire is a pretty great thing.Tomorrow I plan to reach New Hampshire, the second-to-last state and Hanover, the only real college town on the trail.