Date: 2012-07-23
From: Stratton Pond Shelter

To: Green House Hiker Hostel 
Miles today: 10.7

Last night at around midnight it finally did rain really hard but it did not last long. We stayed nice and dry inside the shelter. I was the first one up this morning at around 6:00am and when I went out to the porch I had to chase a chipmunk out of the weekend hikers¢ food bag. It chewed a hole through the bag and was nibbling at their food; they are really getting the full experience out here on their first backpacking trip¢¦big mountain, rain and now chipmunks are in their food. We were all packed up and ready to go by 7:15am and the weekend hikers were still sound asleep in their tents¢¦I hope they have better luck on the rest of their hike.Today we are only going 10.7 miles into town and it is mostly downhill and flat so it is going to be an easy day. Smiles left a little before us and we leapfrogged him all day and we also caught up to a section hiking couple that stayed the night at the shelter north of us. We also passed a lot of sobo's today; there seem to be more and more of them each day. There were also some day hikers out today to. We made it to the road that went into town and found that the section hiking couple were there also trying to get a hitch into town. We decided to stay in the woods until they got a hitch because sometimes people won¢t stop it there are a lot of hikers trying to hitch at once. They got a ride in about ten minutes and then we had a go at it. After about 5 minutes we also had ourselves a ride to town. An older gentleman stopped and picked us up and took us to the McDonalds in town so we could eat¢¦thank you so much for the ride. While we were eating we saw One Speed walking around town and he had decided to stay in town and got the last open spot at the hostel we were going to. After we had our fill, which for me was a Big Mac, large fry, large coke, four piece chicken nuggets, crispy chicken ranch snack wrap and a McFlurry, we headed to the outfitters to see if we could get a new water filter. They did not have any in stock so we just ordered one and had them ship it to Rutland VT which is about four days north of us and we will get it then. I also finalized with Merrell about getting my one pair of free boots and I will pick them up in Hanover NH which is half a mile across the border of VT. We then headed to the grocery store beside the outfitters and did our resupply for the next four days. We once again ran into and he said that he was going to hike two more mikes out of town today to the next shelter.Once we were all done with our resupply we called Jeff (he owns the hiker hostel) and he was there in about ten minutes and took us to the hostel. Jeff lives in Ohio but comes up there every year for four months and runs the hostel and it is awesome. First of all, each hiker gets one free pint of Vermont¢s own Ben and Jerry¢s ice cream...awesome, we each get a bed, shower, Wi-Fi, computer use, phone use, laundry, loaner cloths so we can even wash our town clothes, plus there is a full kitchen, living room, tv and free shuttles into town and back to the trail in the morning and it only cost $20.00 per person.Big Sky, Sugar, One Speed and I got our own room with four beds in it and our own full bathroom. We all took turns in the shower then washed our clothes, did all the other usual chores - check emails and facebook, update pictures and journals, call people, charge phone and iPod, make gear repairs and then we can rest. But we could not rest for long because the four of us decided to go back into town to see the new Batman movie at 5:00pm. We got a ride into town from Jeff and he said we had to be back at the hostel by 8:30pm or else we would have to get our own ride back, the movie was almost three hour long so it was going to be close.The movie ended at 8:15pm and we called him right away and he got us back to the hostel at 8:28pm so it was close. While we were gone four sobo's showed up and the hostel was full. We then made two frozen pizzas and had ourfree ice cream while watching a thunder storm on the porch. It looks like it might be rainy in the morning so our plan might be changed for tomorrow but we will see and now it is time for bed...night all