Date: 2010-07-12
From: Wintturi Shelter

To: Cloudland Shelter
Miles today: 10.6

It is a good day for a hike! We had planned to make it a 12+ mile day, skipping one shelter and getting closer to town. We had a lot of 'road' hiking with the remains of homesteads again (pictures to come as soon as we can get to a computer with a sd port!)We passed by several trees that reminded us of the ones from The Lord of the Rings. We started pretending that they were talking to us, making up dialog as we walked. We make up song lyrics too as we walk. We will have to write some of them down, they get pretty silly.We got to have real food for lunch today. A small farm stand (On the Edge) was just off the trail near Pomfret, VT. We ate very well! Smoked chicken breast, fresh veggies & ice cream. The problem with these town lunches is that you eat too much and then you have to go hike some more. If you've been following us long you know what the hike out of town is like...UP. We started with a 600' nearly vertical climb. UGH!!! Met a hiker called "Critter's Dad" and had been leap-frogging with him since the last shelter. He had caught up with us for lunch and took the lead at the climb. We all took a break by a small creek a few hours later. We started back to hiking before him after the break and didn't see him for the rest of the day. We did see something new today; syrup lines. Several strings of plastic tubing was beside us on one of the road walks. These tubes crossed the trail and tied into a larger tube. We followed them with our eyes and determined that they were tapped into the maple trees. So this is where syrup comes from! Too cool!!!I took a spill on another river crossing (I hate pointy rocks!). It turned out to be quite comical in retrospect. I thought too long about where to put my foot coming off the pointy rock and ended up slipping. I slid down onto my butt and fell backwards due to the weight of my pack. I landed between 2 rocks in a small waterfall, stuck on my back and looking like a turtle. Hobo pulled me up, but I was soaked as was eveything in my pack. I currently carry all the sleeping stuff so that meant sleeping bags & mats were also wet. Things were a little tense at first since this was my second fall crossing water but we eventually laughed about it and moved on. We had a couple more miles to go to find a place to stop so we trudged on with water dripping.We went to Cloudland Farms Hostel hoping to dry out and get out of the rain that was expected. We got there to discover the "hostel" was just a horse barn, complete with horses & horse smells. Needless to say we didn't stay there. We found the shelter that is no longer used because the trail as been rerouted and stayed there. It only added another mile but we were exhausted and it was almost dark.We dropped everything when we got to the shelter and Hobo went to find the water source. He found it alright. As soon as he got a few feet from the shelter, the clouds opened up and it started to pour! He came back without any fresh water to cook dinner with. We ate trail mix for dinner.As we were sitting there discussing the events of the day, Hobo was stung by a hornet. He looked up to see that he was sitting right below a tennis ball size nest. He moved and we were a lot more careful about how we move in and around the shelter. The rain continued and we went to bed in the slightly damp sleeping bags.Another night in paradise...Happy Trails,ATeam