Date: 2014-07-25
From: Stealth campsite off Totman Road (mile 1723)

To: Happy Hill Shelter (mile 1737.3)
Miles today: 14.3

A very cold night last night. Forty-nine degrees. My JRB quilt was again not up to the task of keeping me warm, forcing me to put on my clothes. I plan to accept their offer to take it back and purchse a different one for after the White Mountains. This morning we got going around 8 o'clock. It was a major day of straight up and downs. After walking for 3 miles, we came to the "Cloudland market", which sells Vermont-made ice cream, soda beef jerky, and other goodies. Unfortunately they did not have coffee. We went ahead and each got a pint of ice cream (I had the cinnamon, it was very good). It was a brand-new building, with nice restrooms, so we made today's first stop a little early, consuming almost an hour, but washing clothes, selves (a little bit), charging devices, and drying the condensation from our tents. In short, a very productive break. We started up again and in addition to lots of ups and downs, the terrain was a preponderance of either Pine Forest or walking through fields of heavy weeds. They probably do not have enough trail maintainers to Weed-whack all the spots where it is needed. We next came to a road (Quechee/West Hartford) which includes a bridge that crosses the white river into West Hartford Vermont. As we were crossing a bridge, and we noticed a gentleman in the house right next to the bridge waiving us over to offer us some soda. There were some other hikers there, and evidently he (Randy) and his wife Linda have been doing this for years. Their house was in the process of still being rebuilt from hurricane Irene, which flooded the area. It was very gracious hospitality, and they even invited us to stay there, but we needed to press on. Linda gave some of the other hikers a ride to the post office to pick up packages. Evidently, the general store a few doors down which closed had been doubling as a post office/package delivery pick up location. I recharged our water bottles, and as we prepared to leave, our hosts informed us that it is customary for hikers to jump off the bridge into the river. I asked if it was deep enough to avoid hitting the bottom and injuring ourselves and we were assured that it is. I therefore indulged in a quick swim this afternoon. Essentially, just jumping off the bridge, swimming to shore and drying off, and rucking up. It was fun, and it felt good. We pressed onto the Happy Hill shelter. As we stopped at the last water point before the shelter (in the off-chance that the shelter water supply had dried up) Al happened to sample the water I had drawn from some faucets in town. It smelled bad and tasted worse. We dumped the foul water and pulled fresh water from the stream and proceeded up to the shelter. We found some decent campsites in the Pines. To our surprise we discovered that there was a series of wasp nests burrowed into the ground where we attempted to set up our dinner operations. Al was stung immediately a couple of times, and when I came over to set up, was also stung. We prudently elected to move the operation up the hill a little. Mosquito activity initially intense, but after it got dark, they settled down.