Date: 2019-09-18
From: Sherburne Pass Trail/Inn at Long Trail, Killington, VT

To: Cooper Lodge (VT)
Miles today: 8.2
Weather: clear sky

I woke up at 4:15 and one of my earplugs had fallen out. Things seemed quiet so I decided to just put my earplugs away and go back to sleep. As soon as I do, the traffic suddenly picks up on the road. I finally get up at 5. The tent is soaked as I imagined it would be. Fortunately my sleeping bag and the other things in the tent are dry. I change clothes and pack everything up except the tent which I drape over a fence.The restaurant opens at 7:30 for breakfast, so I go over for that. The couple I talked to last night are there, and they give me a link to follow their progress.Given the wetness of my tent and my proximity to Walmart, I decide to take the bus into town to pick up snacks for the next few days. By the time I get done with breakfast, the next westbound bus is scheduled for 9:20, so I cross the road to make sure my tent is drying out. When I go to cross back over, the eastbound bus sees me and stops despite my attempts to wave the driver off. I hope that when he comes back westbound he stops for me.I sit in a game room to wait for the bus and overhear a hiker trying to figure out how to get cash for the bus. I¢m glad to know there will be someone else trying to catch the bus. When the time comes, we stand out by the road and the bus stops. Turns out he¢s hiking the Long Trail and is planning on doing the AT next year. When we get to the bus terminal, I make a beeline for Walmart. I pick up my snacks, check out, and am back with 10 minutes to spare before the bus leaves again. The bus driver seems impressed.Back at the Inn, I put away my snacks and pack up my drier but not completely dry tent. As I am packing, a van stops and drops off a couple of hikers. One is the guy from the last hostel I leapfrogged with for a while. He says that I must have passed him when he stayed in his tent one day until 3pm. The other is the guy I stayed with at the Thistle Hill Shelter. They took a shuttle from a road crossing several miles back and are going to take the bus from here to the Yellow Deli. I finish packing and start back up Sherburne Pass Trail at 11:15. I¢m back on the AT by 11:40 and a mile later I¢m on the joint AT/Long Trail. Just after the merger, I meet a couple of LT hikers who seem so excited to be on the trail. This is a huge contrast to the mostly discouraged AT nobos I¢ve encountered recently.A little while later I catch up with Sidewinder! I¢ve gotten within a few hours of him, but this is the first time I¢ve seen him since before the Whites. I also met his current hiking partner. We talked a little, and then I kept hiking knowing he would catch up.A little while later I meet an LT section hiker. She¢s really friendly and gives me a bunch of information about the upcoming trail, but I can only process so much. The shelter I¢m aiming for has no water so I ask her where to get water. ¢Oh, there¢s lots of water on the trail before you get there.¢ That¢s not exactly helpful.I get to a shelter that has a sign saying it¢s the last chance for water before my goal shelter. It¢s .1 miles off the trail and Guthook says it¢s another 100 feet to the water. It feels farther than that. And when I get to the water, it¢s difficult to collect. I wish that section hiker had told me to fill up at a brook I crossed just a little while before the turn off before the shelter because it was right on trail and much easier to collect from. But then I keep hiking and about .3 miles before Cooper Lodge, there are 2 streams that cross the trail, both flowing much better than the one at the shelter. Now I¢m wishing the section hiker was more specific and the sign at the shelter hadn¢t been there because now I¢ve carried 2.5 liters of water uphill for several miles when I didn¢t need to. I get to Cooper Lodge and it looks pretty sketchy and immediately decide to tent. I can see the tents set up a little further up the trail.This shelter and tenting area are near a spur trail to Killington, the last 4,000¢ mountain until after I skip down to Damascus. Sidewinder¢s pack is here (we had leapfrogged a few times on the way here), so I assume he has climbed up Killington. He is talking about hiking on because he is less than 5 miles from his 500 mile mark and would like to get there today. I¢ve only done 8.2 miles, but that¢s pretty good considering I didn¢t start until almost noon.I set up my tent with 2 other tents and a hammock, and Sidewinder comes down from Killington, picks up his pack, and continues hiking. I tell him I¢ll probably see him again within the next few days.Once I set up, I have about 30 minutes until sunset. I grab Spike, my headlamp, and some snacks and head up the summit of Killington. While the hike was short, it was steep and required the use of my hands to climb. The hammocker and a couple of women staying in Cooper Lodge itself are also up there to see the sunset. This is the second sunset I¢ve seen in 3 days. The only other sunset I¢ve seen was from Rice Field Shelter just outside Pearisburg, VA. I would consider getting up to watch the sunrise, but I am not anxious to do that climb again.