Date: 2012-06-27
From: Congdon Shelter

To: Mass Rt 2
Miles today: 14.1

The night in the shelter was good: enough people to make it reasonably warm, dry, no snorers, and relatively bug free. I was snuggled deep in my sleeping bag early, kept it completely velcroed up all night, and didn't venture out until after 6:30 this morning. When I did emerge it was actually not a bad feeling morning. It was dry, less humid, less cold, and there were little patches of blue sky among the clouds.The day's hike started out weird. I think I was still in sight of the shelter when I lost the trail markings and ended stumbling through the forest around blown down trees. Finally I spotted some bog bridge planks to head for and got back on the trail. It was fairly decent trail all day, the standard rocks, roots, and mud, some of which had been made sludgier by the past couple days rain. I passed by and over a couple of Beaver ponds, in one case just to the east of, and slightly below the level of the beaver dam. It was strange walking on bog boards beside and below the water level with thigh high water being held back by the mud and stick dam. I'm glad I didn't have to cross this yesterday in the pouring rain. The boards are very slick when wet, and a fall here would have been pretty wet and nasty.It was very windy early in the day. The trees were creaking and small branches occasionally dropped from above, and when I crossed a powerline easement at the top of a hill I was afraid I might blow sideways. I had to use my hat strap to keep it on my head for the first time this trip. But the breeze kept the temperatures down, and as the day warmed up and got sunnier it stayed cool enough in the woods that stopping for breaks was a little bit chilly. That encouraged me to keep hiking with only short breaks. When I stopped for lunch I actually had my jacket on, and only took 30 minutes.All of that put me somewhat ahead of schedule and reaching the Vermont Massachusetts state line a little before 3pm. My intended destination campsite was only a couple of miles downhill, but a couple more miles beyond that was a road with a town. I made the decision there that I'd go down into town tonight instead of camping and going in in the morning. It would mean spending 2 nights in town because it would be too late to get anything done today, but the draw of a hot shower was just too strong. Of course, having made the decision, that's when the trail turned in to a painstakingly slow crawl downhill over a massive boulder field. I'm not fond of boulder fields going up or down: too many high awkward angle steps up or down, on rocks that frequently move when you put you weight on them, but downhill is definitely more dangerous as it is farther to fall (and you all know how much I do that!). Downhill in a hurry would just be foolish, so when I saw the extent of the boulders I stopped, strapped my hiking poles to my pack, and decided to SLOWLY climb down using my hands and butt as necessary. It was slow and sweaty, but I made it through without incident.Once clear of the rocks I just had a couple more miles regular hiking down to the road. My feet were howling and tender from the long day in wet boots, but we just kept at it and eventually made it down the hill, across a road, railway bridge and the Hoosic River and into civilization. My timing was pretty crappy, with a train passing below me on the railway crossing. The loud screaming whistle and rattle of cars while confined in a metal bridge was rather extreme after a week in the woods with the loudest noise being bird calls.Now I'm in town. I took a glorious long hot soapy shower and scraped all the mud and sweat off. My hiking clothes are in a nasty stinky pile in the corner, and I'm limited right now to my nighttime shorts and t-shirt. Tomorrow I'll need to find a laundry before I set about the other chores I need to get done in town, but for tonight I'm just going to worry about getting food, and sliding clean and fresh into soft white cotton sheets. Goodnight.