Date: 2015-07-26
From: Mark Noepel shelter

To: Stealth Camp on Porcupine Ridge
Miles today: 16.5
Weather: scattered clouds

The first full day in Vermont gave me wild raspberries, my eighth bear sighting, and pretty much zero views. Also, I can definitely tell we're not in (fill in AT state south of Vermont) anymore. I hiked a full day without too much horsing around and barely eked out 16 miles.But first, rain! I heard it start, closed the rain fly and checked the time. It was 4:48 so I figured I was going to sleep in a little. By 6:30, the drips on my tent seemed to come in very irregular intervals so I ventured out to see how things were looking. Not too bad, the rain had more or less stopped and I was out of camp by 7:35.Naturally the day started with a climb. I was wearing my rain jacket but took it off pretty quickly as it was too warm and not raining anyway. There were longer ups and downs today and I definitely feel put on notice that things are going to be harder from now on. There were no major landmarks today, and the mountains that we did climb did not lead us to any views. One did have quite a few ripe raspberries though, which isn't a bad substitute.There was a fair amount of mud, but none of it was unmanageable. I think the rain this morning wasn't enough to have much of an effect, and the trail probably has been drying out for a good week. No complaints from me! (Yet).I thought I had missed the first shelter, where I had planned to have lunch, so I ate in a camping spot. And then I saw the shelter 300 yards or so down the trail while I was eating. Oh well, it didn't have a picnic table anyway. The one last night didn't either, so maybe that's a Vermont thing. Shortly after leaving the shelter, I heard a commotion and saw a bear rushing down from a tree and run away as it heard me approach. If it had just stayed in the tree, I would have never known it was there. It was my first bear since Harpers Ferry, so it has been a while.After lunch, I made my way down to VT 9, which is the road to Bennington. The descent to the road was the steepest and longest in quite a long time and my knees were feeling it. Yesterday, the local AT chapter put on a big hiker feed (BBQ!) in the parking lot here, but sadly that was a one day event. I was hoping there might be a cooler with leftover sodas or something at the road, but no such luck.However, Pain Wizard was there and more importantly so were his wife and their RV. And they did have a cooler of sodas! Pain Wizard's wife meets him most every day at a road crossing and he eats and sleeps in the RV as much as possible. When Southpaw and I met him a couple of weeks ago, he had given her two weeks off for her birthday. Fortunately the climb up from the road was not anywhere near as steep as the descent, but it was still fairly hard work. Made harder by annoying mosquitoes. I had planned to camp somewhere on this ridge, but possible sites were scarce. Then I came to a view (sort of) where there was one tent already. It was Mary and Michel, a French Canadian couple that was at the shelter last night and I had chatted with them when they passed me on the trail early this morning. They didn't mind me joining them and even invited me over into their mosquito-netted enclosure for mosquito-free dining! It has now been christened 'the medical tent'. They are hiking the Long Trail and agreed today was pretty hard.Cell phone service has gone down drastically the last day or so. I haven't had a good enough signal to send my entry from yesterday to Gary and I suspect that this might become common again. But I still write them every day and will send as soon as possible!It is cooling down. It might be good sleeping weather again!Open map in new windowWant to add a map to your journal?