Date: 2015-07-22
From: Campsite 1724.4

To: Norwich - trail angel's 
Miles today: 20.2

Yes, we have a wet tent this morning. We dried the tent as much as possible before starting to hike. It is amazing how much heavier items are when they are wet. One liter of water weights 2.2 pounds. We figured the tent soaks up a half liter of water. So, that adds an additional 1 pound. Doesn't seem like alot. But, it is.   We continued to climb first thing this morning. We were anxious to find water as the water source we were going to use last evening was brown from all the rain. And, it was moving too swiftly to even fill our water bag. It would have been swept away. We found a nice stream at the top of our second climb. It looked like it wasn't a normal flowing stream. But, with all the rain, it was our water source.    We met Frisbee, a section hiker. We chatted with him a bit. Then, we started hiking together. we came down a steep hill to a stream. It looked like normally we could use rocks to cross the stream. There was a guide cable to help cross. But, the water was too high as the rocks were covered with water. We had to take our boots and socks off to cross. Brrr, the water was cold. And, it was moving fast. But, we made it to the other side without incident. Just on the other side of the stream was trail magic. There were cold sodas. Of course, we drank one. We took our morning break also. We might as well have a soda with our break instead of water. We had a steep, steep climb once we crossed the stream. It was 600 feet in .4 miles. It was steeper than Jacob's Ladder. We were huffing and puffing till we reached the summit. The trail made it easy to climb as there were no roots or rocks. It was an older pine forest. There were pine needles covering the trail. This made the trail soft. Something we aren't used to!!   We ventured .2 miles off the trail to Cloudland Market. We don't normally venture .2 miles off the trail. But, the taste of non-hiker fare made us go. Well, we shouldn't have gone! There was no real food to buy for hikers. There was only larger quantity of cheeses. We did each have a soda made with Vermont sweet water. Not sure what that is, but, certainly not worth a total of .4 miles that don't count towards our end result. But, you live or hike and learn. As we were leaving the Cloudland Market, we saw dark clouds forming. Seriously, we were going to get rain again? But, the chance of rain was 10%. We hiked and hiked fast. But, we couldn't out hike the rain. Sure enough, a downpour occurred. We were in the woods for a bit. But, then, we hiked across an open field. Yes, hiked across an open field in a downpour. So, by now, the grass was wet. What does that mean? Wet legs, socks and boots. Wet feet again.    The rain lasted for about an hour. We were in the forest and then in open fields. Ugh. Finally, the rain stopped. But, we had more, lots more, of open fields to hike through. And, the grass was tall - taller than Lavender! Even if we were drying out, we got wetter from the grass. We were not happy hikers! We did come upon wild raspberry patches. We ate some, but, we were so tired of being wet, we pressed on. We were coming into a town, West Hartford. We were hoping for a park or picnic table to sit at. We came down the mountain, crossed White River. There in the other side of the road was a picnic table. More importantly, there was a huge AT sign on a barn. We had heard rumors about this barn. The owner allows thru-hikers to stay in his barn. We knew we could use the picnic table to sit. Just as we approached the barn, the owner came home. We asked if we could set our tent up to dry. He said yes. And, he offered to make us hotdogs. We graciously accepted the hotdogs offer. And, he gave us sodas. We ate hotdogs - Frisbee ate four, Count ate four and Lavender ate three. Yes, we were hungry!! We spent two hours with the Hart Family. But, we had to leave and hike on. Frisbee decided to stay and spend the night. The Hart's had told us about trail angels in Norwich, VT that opens their homes to thru-hikers to spend the night. He said instead of staying at the shelter, hike another 2 miles to Elm Street. So, we hiked and we hiked fast. Up and down, up and down. Finally after 7.4 miles, we arrived at Elm Street. At the top of the street just off the trail was trail magic. We each had a soda and Oreos. Yes, before we ate dinner, we ate Oreos and they were yummy. We made a call to a trail angel. She said we could spend the night and we were just in time for dinner. Her home was two doors from where we were. We walked down the street. As we approached the garage, Outlier was standing there. We haven't seen her since Jul 3! We exchanged hugs and were happy to see each other. We took showers, put on cotton clothes, yes - non-hiking clothes the trail angel had, and had dinner. There was another thru-hiker, well actually, Wayfare, is hiking from Florida to Canada. He is hiking more than the AT. He started hiking in October! We had a wonderful time socializing with our host and hostess, Wayfare and Outlier. We finished dinner, helped to clean up and talked more about the upcoming Whites. Then, it was past hikers midnight, time for bed.