Date: 2006-07-18
From: Minerva Hinchey Shelter, VT 

To: Cooper Lodge, VT
Miles today: 13.9

Cell good.The name of this location sounds better than it is. The building is a stone building with a dirt floor, window openings, but no windows, and wooden platform bunk beds. The place isn't worth sleeping in, and the insects [black flies] are plentiful. My tent is set up on a wooden platform put here to keep us from setting our tents up on fragile ground.I'm actually on Killington Mountain, .2 mile from the top where the chairlift drops the skiers off in winter. I'll be going into the town of Killington tomorrow to pick up another mail drop. It's great when I run out of food and I need more, that tells me I'm making progress. Today¢s hiking was very eventful - the first event was crossing Clarenden Gorge on a wobbly suspension bridge. I don't usually get afraid on such bridges, but this one did get me. The second event was off trail by .5 miles, I went to a diner called The Whistlestop. It is in an old train station, the original woodwork is still in place and it is very nice. I had a big breakfast of eggs, ham, home fries, toast, and coffee. This isn't your normal trail food and it was very good. I was told about this place by another hiker many miles ago. I'm glad I took his advice - it was filling and good. I had breakfast with ¢Waterboy¢ and ¢Uncle John,¢ a high school aged boy and his uncle. We ended up hiking the rest of the day together. The third event of the day was a while later when we were crossing a stream and I spotted soda in the stream. Someone had left trail magic for us, so we had a cool drink and another sugar/caffeine boost.The forth event happened about an hour later when we came across a cooler with sodas in it, again we stopped and had a cool one.The fifth event was a very hard rain storm that blew through for about an hour. Luckily, we were at a shelter when the sky became dark. We waited, contemplating if we should stay or go on. We stayed and we were glad we did. The rain was hard for about 45 minutes and then stopped. We really dodged a big one, the rest of the hiking was dry except for a little residual on the trees.When we left the shelter that saved us from the rain, we immediately started our climb up Killington Mountain. We climbed 2000 feet in elevation over the next 4 miles. The hiking was steep, but it really wasn't that bad. I guess I can say I'm in good shape or a good breakfast and two sodas did the job.Today I passed the 1673.5 mile point - that leaves only 500 miles left in this journey. It wasn't that long ago I wrote I only had 1000 miles to go. This theory of putting one foot in front of the other to get somewhere works - you just have to keep doing it every day.Tomorrow the AT and LT will be splitting. The trails will each be going their separate ways. The AT will be turning east and heading for NH; the LT continues north to Canada.Old GoatSue's Note: One thing Old Goat told me in our call this evening that I don't see in his message above is that there was a note at one of the trail magic spots. It congratulated NOBO thru-hikers for reaching the point where they now have less than 500 miles to go! I thought that sounded pretty cool! What a thoughtful and upbeat thing to do. I have noticed that Old Goat sounds more upbeat when he has spent the day hiking with others. I¢ve asked him how he feels to be hiking alone when that happens ¢ he says it¢s okay, but I hear the difference in his voice when he¢s been in the company of others all day. What has happened is that the people he met in the beginning have either gone ahead (some hike faster, others didn¢t take many zero days), lagged behind (hiked slower or took more zero days), or left the trail for whatever reason. Old Goat just happens to be in the mid-zone and doesn¢t see many of the others right now. I¢m sad for him about that¢¦.I hope he meets up with them again because he likes their company.