Date: 2005-07-27
From: Sherburne Pass Trail 

To: Vt 12 The Red Barn
Miles today: 21.6

10 a.m.Sat down to breakfast, which comes with the room, with OC1, Tinkerbell and Jersey Fresh. We¢d just gotten done watching the t.v.We sat down and watched the weather forecast because it had been raining all night. It showed this huge green mass on the radar; a cold front that covered across six states. It is inevitably going to hit us today with some pretty violent weather. We briefly considered staying in town, but Vern and I said ¢screw it¢ and started walking out of town. He¢s actually two miles behind me. He started in a different place than I did because of the way we dropped in yesterday. It¢s not going to be a fun day, I don¢t think, between the weather and a lot of rocks and roots going out of the Inn at Long Trail going north. And since it rained last night, everything is really, really wet and slippery. Today we¢re going to hit the stiffest climbs since North Carolina. There are some pretty intimidating profiles on this elevation map.We were talking about hitting the barn; there¢s a red barn owned by somebody, down at Vermont 12, but it¢s a long, long ways. I¢m thinking we¢ll just make it to Wintturi Shelter, and that¢s going to be it for the day, especially if we start getting wet.So much for ¢no more twenty mile days¢ and ¢no more long days.¢ Today was a very, very rugged day. Very steep stuff. A lot of climbs. Very rugged terrain, made even worse by the fact that it rained last night, and the rocks and roots were wet still. I took three good falls today all on roots. I did pretty good on the rocks. I was slipping and sliding on the rocks, but the roots got me every time. The third fall was particularly vicious. Hard enough that the ski bindings on my trekking poles kicked in and snapped the poles away. So I¢m very grateful that I got that kind of poles, even though they¢re a little heavier, otherwise, it could have been worse.The rocks are very sneaky rocks here in some places. They are completely level with the ground. They¢re the same color as the dirt. They are covered in leaves so you think you are walking on ground and suddenly you just go sliding across them. They¢re slick with slime, green algae.The reason that I ended up doing twenty miles today is because Vern had been pushing to hit the red barn at Vermont 100. Dan¢s Barn, he allows hikers to stay in. It isn¢t listed anywhere but as things go on the trail, word of mouth gets around. I¢d been here before. This is a guy who has asparagus plants that are nine feet tall.The day that had been blustery and threatening to rain all day appeared to have cleared up and that we appeared to have gotten away scott free. But an hour before we got to Wintturi Shelter, which is four miles short of Vermont 100, and is where I was planning on stopping, the sky suddenly opened up. We got hit with a hard driving rain. I tried to walk in it for a while just with what I was wearing but I started rapidly losing a lot of heat and got chilly. I had to stop and get my raincoat on. By the time I got to Wintturi Shelter, an hour and a half later, I was completely drenched. My feet were squishing in my shoes. I just said ¢Screw it. I might as well go down to the barn to dry stuff out and spread around.¢ What happens is every hiker within miles, when it starts to rain, heads for shelter. I could foresee that the shelter was going to be packed and miserable, so I just kept booking it. I got down to the road at quarter of seven. Actually, I screwed up and ending up going through Wintturi Shelter by mistake because the trail goes straight into it. Where the trail to the shelter is straight off the A.T., where the A.T. hooks off to the right there, so it¢s very easy to just keep walking straight, which is what I did. I wasted a half a mile¢s worth of walking going down to the shelter, of course it¢s downhill, and back up again, running north to the barn.During that course of time, Vern had passed me, and Jersey Fresh had run off too. South Shore caught up to me. Just as we were headed down to the road we walked into Ghetto, a young kid here, by the name of Tom who was helping out Dan. Dan is the owner of the place. He offered to take us out for pizza, which was pretty hard to turn down. So we headed out for pizza. A place that orders in South Shore Nine. Went down to pick it up with Tom. Barbequed chicken pizza. What a miracle of modern science. Good stuff.We stopped at the liquor store and picked up some Long Trail Double Bag Beer which is beer that will knock you on your butt. Came back and ate; drank; sat up til eleven o¢clock, I believe, talking with South Shore. That¢s it for today.