Date: 2022-07-16
From: Yellow Deli Mile 1705.3

To: Killington House Mile 1723.5
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: broken clouds

The plan for today was to make it to the next convenient road crossing where Jen could realistically pick us up. That makes it the Greengate Road parking area for an 18 mile day. Because this parking lot is in the middle of nowhere, with potentially no cell service, we said it would be better for Jen to drop us off at that parking lot and then pick us up back at Rt 4. That is a major road and we knew we would have cell service there. The other upside is that we would be slacking southbound which means we get to see all the northbound hikers.Jen hiked with us up the relatively steep blue blaze trail to get to the AT and then she joined us for about a mile of the Appalachian trail. She kept looking at us and saying ¢I don¢t know how you do this¢ and today we had lighter than normal packs due to the slackpacking.Most of the hiking today was rather uneventful and similar to recent days. Didn¢t really have any views during the day but we did pass by Thundering Falls waterfall and Kent pond. The waterfall was reasonably tall but was more like a cascade, and it looked like it definitely is more impressive when it¢s not so dry out. Kent pond is very nice and fairly large. We saw a number of people with kayaks as well as an electric motor boat. There were no really nice places to go for a swim but I did go wading for a little bit in the refreshing water.Unfortunately, Orchid had taken off her watch and it fell off her bag at the stopping point. She realize she was missing it about a half mile later and she and I turned around to go back and look for it. When we got back to the spot, it looked like the dog that had been playing in the water had come out of the water where we were. We were wondering if the owner had picked up the watch as we couldn¢t find it. We turned around and we made it back to the parking lot where we found the woman who with the dog. She had picked up the watch and then raced back to the parking lot to try to return it to us. So definitely a trail angel there, and we had just caught her as she was about to leave the parking lot.During the day we saw about 20 northbound hikers including Roller, Grits, and Crush. It looks like we might see some of them going into Hanover, NH.About a mile before the end of the day, at the Maine Junction, where the AT & LT come together, is located and we have the last mile of the combined AT/LT down into the route 4 parking lot. Jen walked up about a half mile to meet us and we got to finish the day with her. She was our Trail Angel of the day, as she spent the day running around Rutland and Killington looking for some last minute supplies and replacement items. Thank you Jen! During all that she also found time to put some beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner tonight.After dinner, we finalized our plans for most of New Hampshire and made reservations at the Lake of the Clouds AMC hut which is right before the Mount Washington summit. We also have reservations at the Joe Dodge Lodge for the following two nights. I really wanted to stay in a hut and Orchid really wanted to stay at the lodge, and we were able to make them happen. I wouldn¢t say that our schedule is aggressive, but it¢s also not conservative. It does not have a lot of room for leeway. We got the last available night at Lake of the Clouds as it is booked solid for 3 weeks following our stay.We also managed to get another load of laundry done at the laundromat, and make the reservations. We passed an ice cream place on the way home, but the line was really long, and it was already almost 830, so we passed it up (horrors!) Instead I had two raspberry turnovers. By the time we finished everything we had to do, including packing up the backpacks and starting to clean up the house, it was already almost 10 PM. I manage to upload video files to Jen but didn¢t manage to get any other social media stuff done. It seems like we really need a double zero to be able to do any kind of real catch-up.Steps 35300Weather Forecast: 78/58