Date: 2007-08-02
From: Wintturi Shelter

To: West Hartford, VT
Miles today: 16.4

(Erin) Today we woke up an hour early with a plan to do 20.4 miles. What we didn¢t know was that it was going to be brutal hot with lots and lots of pointless ups and downs, over very steep mountains. We looked at our guide book before heading out to see what kind of terrain we were up against and the elevation levels actually didn¢t seem too bad. As the day went on we realized that the book wasn¢t giving us all of the elevation points. One point in the book would be the elevation of a road at 880¢ and the next elevation point would be another road at 810¢. So we would assume that the terrain wouldn¢t very steep. Well what we were missing was the elevation point for the un-named mountain that was between those two roads. We would gain almost 1000¢ of elevation between those two roads without any warning. That kind of stuff happen all day long, which really slowed us down. SO¢¦11.6 miles later we made it to the first shelter where we had lunch. We were both hot, sweaty and hungry and still had much farther to go. First we needed water so we went down to the water source and put our heads under the waterfall to cool off. I could see the steam coming off my body I was so hot. After eating lunch and me going down to the infamous privy to take some pictures we had over a hour and a half long lunch. (my bad) So now we were not going to make it to our planned destination before 9:00pm. Once we started hiking I was in no mood to be hiking. It was a really hot day and I was tired of the mindless steep mountains we had been climbing all day long. We still had to see how much of the 8.8 we could do before dark. In the back of my mind I was hoping we could find some camping somewhere before the next shelter, but we¢ll see about that. Will and I actually had one of our few arguments about getting up early to do a longer day and then me taking to long to get ready in the morning and at lunch. Today just sucked over all and I wanted to stop hiking and call it a day. But we had to keep going. We made it to a town called West Hartford, VT at 6:30pm with still 4 miles to go to the Happy Hill shelter. We crossed a bridge where people were jumping off into the river below. I think the jump was about 20¢ high and Will was itching to try it himself. We asked the guys jumping if they knew of any flat places along the river to set up a tent and they didn¢t have a clue, so we walked to the other side of the bridge where two guys were swimming. I called down to ask them where we could set up a tent and they told us about a guy down the road that lets hikers camp in his backyard for free. BINGO!! We had a place to stay for the night. We continued down the road which was still on the AT and stopped at a General store to pick up something to eat. The store had only been open for 16 days and we ordered Phili Cheese Steaks for dinner¢¦wow were they good. We found out more about where the guy was down the road where we could tent and they said to go 4 houses down to a house with a sign outside advertising for ¢West Hardford Signs¢. We walked around the house trying to find the owner and couldn¢t until we knocked on the garage door. A man walked out with a big smile on his face, he had already noticed our packs and knew why we were knocking on his door. He wanted to mow the lawn before we set up the tent. Well we really lucked out with finding this place to stay. The backyard had spring fed water fall that filled up a swimming hole that looked amazing. We were told we could even jump in for a dip and cool down before going to bed. Just before we got into the water hole the owner and his wife came out in bathing suits and got in with us before they headed to bed also. It ended up being a great night¢¦besides the horrible mosquitoes! It ended up being a great end to a miserable day.