Date: 2015-06-21
From: Manchester

To: Little Rock Pond Shelter 
Miles today: 19.0

I woke up early but stayed in bed as usual. The sky outside was grey and unpleasant. Still, I have to keep moving or else I might stop altogether. I went down and had my breakfast. the hostel really does just feel like a house that all the hikers own. I was all ready to leave at 8, when Jeff came to collect the 3 of us that were leaving. Everyone else decided to stay to avoid the bad weather. I weighed my pack before leaving. 32lbs! I am definitely carrying far too much stuff even now. I was back on the trail by 8.30. The weather turned out nicer than expected, it was quite warm and later the sun came out. I started off by walking straight into mud and painting my new shoes. It was inevitable. There isn't a whole lot to say about today, except the trail didn't seem to drag as much as usual. It certainly helped that I had some new podcasts to listen to. At the top of the first peak, I asked another hiker to take a photo of me. He joked about which direction would be best; the entire mountain was white with fog and there were no views at all.On my way down that mountain, I got stuck in a pine tree. It was freshly fallen across the trail, which meant that no one else had broken through the tangled branches yet. I couldn't see anyway around it, as it was on a ledge section. I used my feet to break some of the branches and tried to squeeze through. My pack got stuck immediately. I spent several minutes trying to tug myself out without falling or impaling myself on a branch. I'm sure it would have looked quite funny if anyone had come across me, but fortunately they didn't. After that was lunchtime. I ate a lot, since I was carrying too much food anyway. It's quite difficult to resupply for just a couple days, since everything comes in multi packs. Then it was up Baker mountain. This was a difficult one because it was all sharp ridge rocks that had no foot holds and I had to somehow climb up at a severe angle. Even with my new shoes, I slipped several times. It started heavily raining as a climbed, but for a brief moment I enjoyed a view of the Green Mountain state. It's one of the few views I've had this week. In the later afternoon, the sun came out! But it brought with it millions of bugs. I had to wear my head net because they seemed to aim for my eyes. It got so bad that I couldn't see. They weren't even biting bugs, just kamikaze midgies.I got to the shelter at about 4.30 and claimed the last spot. It was very busy, with lots of people camping around. A few hikers were in the lake when I arrived, because it was such a nice day. By 5, the sky had darkened dramatically and it absolutely poured down. The campers hurried to put up rain flies on their tents and got soaked in the process.At the shelter, I met a few hikers who I haven't seen since Hot Springs. This included the smaller Brightside (hereafter Brightside2), her husband and Seeker. Mozart and Dizzy were there, as well as a group of guys who I hadn't met yet. They knew about me though, from reading the log books and hiker gossip. Apparently I'm known as the one who hates hiking and is just here for the challenge. Which is true, sometimes. Still though, not something I would expect other hikers to talk about really.I also met Gia again, from the Spruce shelter. She told me about the Whites and I realised that they are only 120 miles away. Terrifying.