Date: 2011-07-21
From: 0.2 miles past Stratton Mountain summit

To: Spruce Peak Shelter
Miles today: 10.8
Weather: clear sky

(In which I hang out at Stratton Pond and stop short of Manchester)The night is cool and breezy, and it is an unfamiliar treat to be able to look up and watch the stars and swaying trees. I sleep well, not awakened by rain showers as it had occurred to me I might be as I was falling asleep, and wake early enough to watch the early morning sky colors from my sleeping bag. Though unbothered by bugs or critters, I find that my groundsheet has been visited by more than a few slugs, several of which are slowly working their way to my sleeping bag. I flick them off, but miss one on the outside of my sleeping bag until after I have started stuffing it back in its sack and see the wet, slimy spot from the outside of the stuffsack. Still, it is better than mosquitoes, and I'd risk slugs again if the right cowboy camping spot presented itself.I hike a few miles to the pond at the bottom of the mountain and sit by the water for few hours. Northbounders and southbounders stop by for lunch, and I tell the sobos about The Vortex in Bennington, which none of them have heard of yet. Several decide to try to visit, having not wanted to stop by Bennington before without a cheap place to stay, and I am glad that I can repay the anonymous southbounder who tipped me off in the logbook just south of Bennington.Bunion, a nobo I hadn't met yet who thru-hiked in '09, tells the sobos about the wonderful spring at the Story Spring Shelter that Chickpea so appreciated. "I think that it's the best spring on the entire trail," Bunion says fondly. "I'll still have dreams about that spring water sometimes." I wonder if Chickpea will dream about cold AT spring water when she gets back to Toronto, and if bottled water will ever taste as good.I need to do a relatively short day in order to reach Manchester for my hostel reservation tomorrow (reservations for tonight had filled up days in advance, and I was told by several people not to miss it), so I take long breaks throughout the day, and hike 0.5 off trail to a rarely visited shelter just to see what it's like. It's nice having an excuse to keep things extra slow, and I'm glad that I happen to be in such a scenic area of trail.I stop at the shelter three miles shy of Manchester, where only a section hiker named Charlie is staying, everyone else having opted to at least stop by town. Charlie is a fulltime adventurer, and having recently completed a few bike tours, he says that he hopes that the AT will be better for meeting women. I laugh at this, but Charlie says that when you're homeless and unemployed, the abundance of women off the trail doesn't really help, since nearly none of them are interested. "They're all looking for somebody with money and a house. But out here, people seem more accepting of the nomad lifestyle." When he mentions that he's still looking for a trail name I suggest The Sugardaddy Stallion, trying to give him a leg up on his ambitions with the ladies, but he thinks that it would probably be better to keep expectations to a more attainable level.Tomorrow I will nero into Manchester Center and stay at the famed Green Mountain Hostel.