Date: 2015-07-16
From: Black Brook campsitw

To: Bromley Mt. Ski warming hut
Miles today: 21.4

Well last night turned into a very, very cold night. We have no cold weather gear. And, we have one sleeping bag between us. We were cold. Good thing we are getting our cold weather gear in Killington, VT! We didn't want to get out from under our sleeping bag, but, we did. BRRR, cold.   We got ready even quicker today than we normally do. We just wanted to start hiking. And, hiking we did. We climbed for the first two hours of the day. Well, we had trail magic of two sodas about 20 minutes into the start of our hiking. Yes, we had soda in the morning! Something we never ever did before hiking the AT! We wonder if we will return to our normal eating patterns once we finish the trail. We climbed to Stratton Mountain. Wow, wow, wow. What a view!! The weather was perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky and no humidity. We could see where we had just hiked from and where we were hiking to. We saw Greylock Mountain in Massachusetts where we were at on Sunday. We could see Bromley Mountain, VT where we would be tonight. And, we could see Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire where we will be some time next week. We could see for miles and miles. There were Evergreen trees for as far as we could see.   We ventured on to Stratton Pond. It was another great view. We could have sat there all day. But, of course we didn't. We hiked on. The forest here wasn't Evergreen but were deciduous trees. We are guessing these would be beautiful in the fall with the changing color of the leaves. We also saw moose droppings. Our first sign of any moose! We passed two more SoBo thru-hikers. We chatted with both. We asked questions with regards to hiking further north. Both hikers said to watch the weather for hiking the Whites. Both said to take zero days if the weather is bad.    As we were taking our afternoon break, Silence, a thru-hiker came upon us. We had been leap frogging with him early in our hiking days (before the Soakies) up to just outside Shenandoah. Then, we hadn't seen him until today. It was absolutely wonderful to catch up with him. But, he was getting off tonight. Hopefully, we will see him again soon. His friend, who was picking him up, shared a soda with us. That was very much appreciated. And, so, we ended our day with a two hour climb. We had the daily dilemma of it being 5:30 and having a perfect tenting site. But, we had wanted to hike to the summit of Bromley Mountain. And, so, we hiked on.   Why did we hike on? So we could climb more. And, climb we did. But, we made it to the summit, huffing and puffing.    What a view we had from the summit. More importantly, there was a ski warming hut. Bromley Mountain is a ski resort area. And, the warming hut is open in the summer to stay. We decided we would stay in the hut. This is the first time we are not staying in our tent when we are not in a town. After being so cold last night, we want to be warm.    We have a small little room in the hut. Others are sleeping in the larger room. One of the others sleeping is our trail angel's son that drove us to Bennington. It was good to meet his son. After we set up our sleeping system, we watched a beautiful sunset. It was certainly worth the climb to see such a beautiful ending to a great hiking day.