Date: 2010-09-15
From: Cloudland Shelter, VT

To: stealth-tenting at elev. of 2630 ft. in woods
Miles today: 13.8

Sigh, our mileage today doesn't include the 0.25 we hiked trying to find our way back to the AT from Cloudland Shelter. Why are we having such a problem this section? Usually we only have one incident every 400 miles where we have to retrace our steps, but this section seems to befuddle us! Maybe it's cause we're anxious over the time pressures. It's not looking good for us to get to Manchester Center, VT and back to our car in Hanover, NH, and back home with much time to spare. Well, let's think about what we heard in the early night last night. We heard a dog barking excitedly and an upset cow mooing repeatedly(at least we think it was a cow. Do you think moose sound anything like cows? I dunno), coyote choir singing their multi-yapping songs. It rained twice during the night, got cooler, but we coccooned in our sleeping bags(tucked our heads inside the bags and drew the drawstring tight). Got up at 6:30 a.m., arrived on the real AT by 7:25 after a following a false path from the shelter. Promptly, I tripped on a root, falling deliberately onto the side of my pack--popping up unhurt. Let's see now: haven't even hiked 50 miles & already been lost more times than ever & used up my 400 mile "fall quota" on this, Day 3!! Things can only improve. Mostly steep, prolonged ups, several bucolic views, 2 rock-hopping stream crossings, a couple of wooden board bridges, some bog boards, some bog puddles to inch around, many meadows with tall flowering asters and acres of goldenrod, one grouse, heard woodpeckers, heard a coyote while we pitched our tent around 4:50 p.m.. Toady was partly cloudy, with infrequent sunshine, cooler than yesterday. I had to put on my wool hat while walking this afternoon to keep my ears warm. Poor Take It Easy had a rough time after 10 a.m.. He just felt bad all over with cramps in his lower back aggravating him. We watered up a stream around noon. Met a male kilt-wearing hiker named 7 Dwarfs who's a happy NOBO. 7Dwarfs says he'll be the last to summitt Mt. Katahdin. He asked if we'd seen another NOBO named Patches, but we hadn't. He says he's looking forward to going to the Luna Celtic Festival to see and hear Albannach play. How neat that we've heard Albannach play several times at Celtic festivals near Williamsburg. Also today we met Pusher and his brother Blaze, then a dayhiker. Take It Easy felt a little better by 2:30, but when we reached the side trail to Winturri Shelter, I was the one who hiked down to the shelter's water source, leaving Take It Easy at the top of the trail watching over our packs. Watered up, we got lucky in that the trail profile asn't accurate. Instead of having a lengthy climb, we were delighted with a short climb, then smooth, mostly flat trail with more and more rocks, reminding us of PA. Just after the sidtrail to Lakota Lake Lookout, we found a good soft-evergreen needled based tent site about 30 yds off the trail under what looked like sturdy evergreen trees(not birch which snap and fall with a slight breeze. There's a coyote nearby yapping. The air is getting colder; hope to sleep well and wake up to a dry tent. Take It Easy is so glad he felt up to hiking more miles today. Only a couple of times today did we have to stop for him to rest his feet.