Date: 2010-09-16
From: stealth-tenting at elev. of 2630 ft. in woods

To: Rutland, VT
Miles today: 15.4

Great sleep. No noisy varmits or birds or rain. Packed up and so glad the tent is dry--not nearly as heavy as a wet tent! Hiked through all kinds of forests and meadows, everything smelled deliciously foresty green or flowery. Flushed more grouse and some quail. Watered up midday. Met a husband and wife doing a repeat NOBO thru-hike. The husband had just descended an aluminum ladder from the cliff above. Yes, an aluminum ladder was provided! How fantastic! The wife urged Take It Easy and me to climb on up to the top where she stood on the trail. We did. She was uneasy about climbing down the ladder. We asked if she wanted any help, but she declined. We left her as she gathered herself for going down the ladder. Later on we saw 2 beautiful waterfalls during the day. Signage led us to believe we only had a few more hours/miles to go to get to Rutland where we were going to go into town and get a hotel room for the night. Take It Easy's feet and back are becoming big painful distractions. Started with a cold, windy rain around 3 p.m. near Kent Pond. Cold enough that we'd be at risk if we don't keep moving to keep our body heat up. Rain was relentless. So we were very discouraged when we hit a paved highway, asked the truck-driving forest ranger what road it was, and were told we still have about 4 miles to go. Apparently those nicely crowned dirt roads were not to be counted in the road count detailed on the trailguide. GRRRR! and BRRRR! Now it's imperative we hike fast and safely. We're shivering even while moving. Daylight will fade rapidly with the rain pouring down. In places the trail will become small streams, rocks, roots, and all slopes will be slippery, plus the temps are falling. Hurry, hurry! For the next coule of hours, we didn't talk. It was raining so hard we'd have to yell. I led and Take It Easy followed, stopping every now and then to rest his painful feet. At one point there was a sheer boulder to go around...the only way around it was to take a giant step up onto the dirt bank of the trail,hang onto a skinny tree and swing around, dropping off on the other side. Whew!   I turned around and told Take It Easy I have a plan. He said he did, too. And surprise, surprise, we'd both come up with variations of the same plan! The plan: Get to the road leading to Rutland, call a taxi(my plan was to get the taxi to take us to a Rutland hotel), get a ride to Hanover back to the car, drive for a few hrs to a hotel, then next day drive all the way home. How well did the plan work out? Well, finally, a few minutes after 6p.m. as twilight kaplopped, we reached the Rutland road. We saw a ski rental store up the road that had a little porch. Hustle bustled over there to unpack our cellphone and paperwork with taxi numbers(store is closed). Just when Take It Easy is getting ready to dial, a taxi drove right up to us! Amazing! I went to the driver's window. Driver thought it was us he was to pick up (how could that be? we hadn't called yet), but a lady walked out of another doorway(turns out the bldg is also a apt. bldg)ready for her ride into Rutland. She agreed to share the taxi with us. The driver dropped Take It Easy and me off at the McDonald's across the street from the high school while he dropped the lady somewhere & contacted the taxi company owner to see about driving us to Hanover tonight. While waiting for the taxi company to call us, we changed into our dry clothes and ate dinner. Watching the wet high school soccer teams ordering food was great entertainment. Take It Easy ended up calling the taxi company to check on the status of our ride to Hanover. Apparently there had been a communication breakdown, but it ended up that a little bit after 8p.m. the owner of All Occasion Taxi, Ken, picked us up and drove us through the rain to Hanover, NH. Ken was a good conversationalist, and the time flew. The route was on mostly pitch black forest-bound roads, but Ken made sure to tell us about an 800 ft. high bridge we drove over, one where people bungee jump from. By 9:30 p.m. we were at our car. All is well. We are safe, made it through this section hike with some pain and discomfort, home we go!The stringent time requirements made this hike not very pleasurable. Today we hiked the miles, but it wasn't perty. We were too distracted by time concerns. So we learned a lot. Next hike we'll schedule when we don't have to clockwatch and worry about meeting a deadline. We'll come back to the trail ready to spend the time we need to "stop and smell the roses". The trail is much too amazing and beautiful to rush the experience. As they say, it's about the journey, not the destination, . May we all have wonderful adventurous journeys! Thank you all for your messages and positive thoughts.