Date: 2017-07-26
From: Sunrise shelter

To: Emily Proctor shelter
Miles today: 17.8

Last night in the shelter was relatively peaceful and I slept adequately. I woke around 430 but waited for a little more daylight and the sound of the birds before I got up. It seems that between a small difference and latitude and a small progression past summer solstice it is getting later a little later. I had to use my headlamp during the initial part of breaking camp. I'll ever by the time I had my ID sleeping bag packed up and was ready to cook a little oatmeal there was enough light to see without the assistance of my headlamp.I left the sunrise shelter shortly after 6 o'clock and shortly before 6:30 came to the first place and which I could actually see out over surrounding train. Yesterday of course if it been cloudy rainy and foggy but the foliage had also been so dance that there was just no place to see anything other than the trail and the forest around me. So this morning I was able to look out at what a nearby sign identified as great cliffs and Mount horrid.The last 4 miles or so the trail yesterday as well as this initial part of the trail this morning were very easy abroad flat trail bed which was probably one say road of some kind was well maintained. In several places they were even well constructed wouldn't bridges providing nice flat River crossings with a railing and everything. However when approaching these bridges on the trail I saw sign posts that warned slow bridge ahead. The bridges themselves also head reflective warning markers on the corners of the railings. At first I thought this was to warn snowmobiles and/or all terrain vehicle drivers, who should not have been riding such vehicles on the foot traffic only trail. However my impression changed after i discovered that the flat wooden surface of the wide boards of which the bridges consisted, particularly when damp, was as slippery as ice. I didn't break anything and I didn't fall in the river but I did spend my wheels like a cartoon character and end up so I don't my stomach.Yesterday in today I also saw on one or both sides of the trail a dentist growth of the stinging Nettles that my siblings and I had called saw blades when I was growing up. Based on childhood experience I was careful to avoid skin contact with these plants. Picture. I was not entirely successful.At about 6:45 I arrived at Brandon gap and Vermont route 73. I head a narrow window of his ability to the west going to 73 and took a picture. And then I crossed and re entered the long trail North. As I pushed through the dense brush that line the path that the trailhead I pause to eat a wild raspberry.  Shortly before 1030 I started to sensei hotspot on the bottom of go on my left foot. I thought about waiting until I would drive at the sucker Brook shelter week I estimated was close by. However I thought I should deal with this right away so I stopped to cough my sock and put a piece of duct tape around the big toe on my left foot. Then I continued on, and shortly thereafter i arrived at a small Brook, so I stopped to fill up on water, on which I was running short. While I waited for my aqua mirror water treatment to be ready I applied some insight repellent which I had not needed up to this point because of the relatively cold temperature and yesterday's rain. I also check my gut hook up and determined that I was only a few hundred feet from the sucker Brooke shelter where I had intended to stop for a snack and had anticipated reaching at around 10:30! So I had my snack then and afterward pack up my water and proceeded onto the shelter right checked in only two sign a log book.I reached the top of worth Mountain around 11:45 and there I'm at to southbound hikers who work waiting for to friends who had not cut up with them yet. They appear to be in there 61 was a professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont. His trail name was flash and his real name Rob. I didn't not get a name or trail name from the other gentleman. We talked about a number of things for about a half and hour.Before I left to continue North they asked me to tell their friends that they were waiting for them. I did that when I encountered them one at a time between 5 and 10 minutes later. By the way another interesting fact about Rob is that he offered a book about law war and conflict. He claimed to have been two more than 50 Wars.How about 12:30 I came up on another group of 3 hikers who were eating lunch at a spot from which it was possible to see out to the west so I joined the momentarily and took a picture. 2 of them were men whgo appeared to be in their forties and the other was a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. The men were from State College Pennsylvania and Iowa and the woman was from Los Angeles. They were part of a group doing work for the National Park Service at a park nearby and head just taken the day off to climb in the battell wilderness.At 1 p.m. I crossed the top of the chair lift running down to the east at Middlebury Snowbowl ski area. Pictures. At about 1:30 p.m. I cross the top of another chair left running down hill to the west. At the bottom of this I could see some buildings. Picture. Shortly after that I reached route 125 and Middlebury gap.I arrived at the Boyce shelter about 3:30 p.m. I stopped there to have a late lunch and decided to move on at least as far as the Emily Proctor shelter another three point seven miles. After lunch, I filled and treated a liter and a half of water and then I continued North up the trail.Shortly after 5 o'clock I arrived at the turnoff for the blue trail to the skyline Lodge. This is a beautiful and close. Maintained by the Green Mountain Club with a terrific view of the skyline pond blow it. I went that way not so much to see the view of pond but because Mount Moosilake is visible far in the distance to the east. I took a picture and I think if you look closely you can see the faint grey shadow significantly larger than anything around ish. There were three hikers at the skyline Lodge. This was a man in a woman and there late thirties early forties and what a pretty to be there daughter around 10 years old we had put in conversation about the long trail in the Appalachian Trail for a few minutes and then I return to the long trail and continued North.