Date: 2013-07-11
From: hanover

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Yesterday Fly's godmother dropped us off in Hanover and Fly and I began our road walk on the AT thru the town. What a great city to hike through! Dartmouth college is within sight of the trail and there are numerous restaurants, ice cream shops, and even a theater right on the trail. I took it all in knowing that I'd be dying for a real meal in just a few short days. As chance would have it, Woodrow and Slapp arrived in Hanover the same day Fly and I did. By the time we got there they were in bed but we knew they were slack packing back to town the next day so we picked up a couple beers to celebrate our reunion ( my first thought was champagne to celebrate their progress but it was too heavy). After about a hundred yards on the trail/ sidewalk by Dartmouth's stadium my joints were hurting. The trail went past a grocery store then took a sharp left into the woods. My aches started to fade and I definitely felt at home again. We soon ran into Woodrow who is now hiking with two broom sticks covered in caution tape for trekking poles. Fly and I sat with him and caught up for a while before the mosquitoes pressured us to move. It wasn't long after that that we ran into Slapp and Clark Kent, a new to me hiker. We sat and visited with them for about an hour before moving on. Soon it started pouring rain and the already muddy trail became a stream. We crossed an open field just as lightning began and we just had to laugh at the way the trail was welcoming us back. We only went ten miles to moose mountain shelter but we worked for them and were sure feeling it. The shelter was nice and would have had a great view except for all the cloud cover. For my first trail meal I had Mac and cheese with some instant mashed potatoes tossed in. Meh. The next morning we were both plenty sore and worn out. I slept in and we got a late start. We climbed moose mountains north peak and descended into a swamp. Any hope of dry feet was dispelled after 10 yards on the trail. We had another climb which featured pretty sheer cliffs near the summit and then descended to Trapper Johns shelter. Here we found Whiskers and Rocket, a couple from Cambridge, MA. Whiskers told me the shelter was named for Trapper from MASH. Fly finished being lost and soon arrived as well! Whiskers and Rocket told us they had seen us getting out of the car in town the day before and thought we looked " nice." Maybe we stand out from the rest of those who have been on so long!A great stream flows right by this shelter and I bathed in it. The water flows pretty well here so the Mosquitos aren't too horrible. Lost and Found and Fiddlehead were two new hikers that also showed up. I was shocked to see Roadrunner from Germany coming down the trail with another German hiker named Foxy! The last time I saw him was outside of the Nantahala outdoors center! Hoosier also came into camp who I hadn't seen since Hot Springs, NC. It was great to see familiar faces. I also met aggie Al from NM and Samson from MS. Samson crashed while skydiving into the Alabama MS State game in 1996, I'm gonna have to look that up on YouTube. It's light out but the Mosquitos are horrible so I'm going to try to sleep. I ate about a pound of instant Refried beans which were phenomenal, so that should help! Full shelter tonight!PS we found two boxes of fountain firecrackers in the shelter so we had a small pyrotechnic show. I set them off in an old chimney in front of the shelter and smoke billowed from the top.