Date: 2005-08-07
From: Glastenbury Mountain Observation Tower (3748 feet)

To: North of Stratton Mountain
Miles today: 16.6

Up early enough to get a beautiful sunrise. I was gone by 7:05 and moving through some beautiful landscape. Stilts showed up before I moved out and we walked together for a few miles. Eventually Stilts literally just walked away from me. He was a bit too fast, not that I could not keep up but, I figured why? This will all be over soon enough and I wanted to make it last. Stilts was going to leave the trail shortly to attend a wedding (I believe) and was putting on the miles for that and his own personal reasons. I was hiking my own hike so eventually I ended up alone again (for a while that is).   I took a lunch break at the Story Spring Shelter and reflected on the fact that this will all be over soon. As I wrote before a lot of thru hikers were feeling the same way. It was obvious that we had a great chance in finishing well before the 15th of October. This was when Mount Katahdin was restricted on entry. You could still summit on a day by day basis however, it was known on the trail that it would be advisable to have it done by then.   For some reason Camel, Sunshine, Stilts and I all came together at a certain point on the trail. Perhaps it was a shelter stop, or we found some trail magic and were enjoying it at the same time, I do not know. We were at the footbridge that crossed the stream called "Black Brook" taking a break and ahead we noticed two people walking south. All of a sudden Sunshine lit up like sun shine. She knew these two people, in fact I was told they just talked to each other over the phone not long ago. Their names were Rob and Alison or Al as she liked to be called.    Sunshine met them on her thru hike attempt last year. After they talked a few days earlier, Rob and Al got in their car and drove to the trail. It took them almost all day to drive to a spot where they thought they could catch up to Sunshine. They simply got out of their Van and just walked south till they met up with her. They were only about a mile away from her at the time they decided to go to ground and walk (what a good guess). They knew where she was and her hiking speed, did the math and the rest is history. It was done all to surprise Sunshine and it worked, she was speechless. We all walked to the Van and shared some trail Magic (Socks showed up just before we left). Eventually Stilts and I moved on. Sunshine, Camel, Rob and Al left the trail together and spent a day or two talking about old and new times. What great people (thanks Rob and Al).   What a great day this was . We climbed another tall peak called Stratton Mountain (3936 feet). This was where the AT apparently was born. Earl Schafer, it is said, sat in a tree near where the trail passes the summit, and thought up the idea of a continuous path on the east coast. I am personally so thankful that such a man had such a dream and the tenacity to make it a reality. Stilts and I walked together up Stratton Mountain and then checked out the Fire Tower there. Another nice tower indeed with more outstanding views. What a difference being this high up in the pine trees. Massachusetts has nothing like this, not even on top of Greylock. Greylock was commercial with a road and tourists everywhere. Here there was isolation and privacy. We were going to try to stay near the top but the caretaker there said we could not camp there. We walked about a half mile down hill and found a semi flat area and set up camp just before sunset. A great day again (nice ).   I may have failed to mention it in yesterdays log. My family said that they would love to have me come home but, they would rather have me just "get it done".