Date: 2008-08-07
To: Shakedown Day 2
Miles today: 0.0

Start: Goddard Shelter   (Vermont or Vermud)Stop: Story Spring ShelterMileage: 8.9 miles Total: 19.0 milesWe had a comfortable night in our tent last night, I slept pretty well but Sue had a restless night, she¢ll give her perspective later.We awoke for the day and had a rather slow start. By the time we had the tent down most of the shelters occupants were gone so we carried our packs and equipment into it to use the space and wooden floor to pack. We also took advantage of the shelf at the front of the shelter to cook our breakfast, a cup of coffee each and two instant packets of oatmeal for Sue and two packets of grits for me. By the time we ate, cleaned up and packed we were second to last to leave the shelter at 8:50am.The fist quarter mile was a 250 foot elevation up Glastenbury Mountain; it was hard and steep but also very short. There is a fire tower at the top but the fog would have given zero view so we hiked right past it. Shortly after passing the tower we started to see Moose Scat, it looks like deer scat but larger. The scat was the only indication of moose and unfortunately the only thing we saw related to them.The next 4 miles were mostly down hill and we made fairly good progress. We reached the Kid Gore Shelter about lunch time so we decided to stop for a break. The shelters are good resting places when they are close to the trail. This one was about 250 feet off the trail and easy to reach. I went to the spring and filtered the water we needed to replenish and to have some for lunch. The sun was out and there was a nice picnic table in front of the shelter for us to be comfortable. We ate lunch, replenished our water again, and took off for our afternoon hiking. Kid Gore Shelter is in a little gap, we hiked downhill to go by it and we had to hike uphill to get away from it. We had another 500 foot elevation gain in the next mile so our progress was slow going. About halfway up we started to hear thunder and see lightning flashes in the distance. Shortly after the rain started to fall and the ponchos were on once again. While it rained we stated to see hail landing on the ground, the ice balls were about the size of a pea. The hail was very isolated because later on at the shelter we learned some of us saw it others didn¢t. This latest climb started to make my muscles ache again and I had to take some vitamin I (Ibuprofen), from then on I took the magic vitamin every four hours when hiking. Sometime after we crested the mountain the terrain started to go downhill and the remainder of the hike went smoothly. Also the rain didn¢t last too long and we were able to shed the rain gear once again.We arrived at the Story Spring Shelter with a sunny sky sow we were able to find a tent site and set up with ease. We went about our business of unpacking, setting up our tent, and preparing dinner before it started to rain again. We are not staying in the shelters because we like our privacy and out of respect to thru hikers. At 6pm we were in our tent staying warm and dry with little to do. We had both overlooked bringing something to read so we had a long boring evening.Old GoatSue¢s journal: Old Goat mentions I had a restless night. I found myself anxious about the rest of our hike ¢ worrying about my feet for the next day because my boots are so wet, worrying about all the miles ahead of us because now we are hurting (Vitamin I is amazing ¢¦ works very well!), etc¢¦¢¦.worrying about things I can do nothing about but wait and see how it goes. I tend to do this a lot, so I usually read when I go to bed to stop my mind from mulling over things. I didn¢t bring a book because I don¢t want the extra weight, and I don¢t want to wear down my head lamp batteries. I¢ll have to figure out something to help me stop thinking about things and be able to go to sleep easier.I did find that sleeping on our pads on the ground is wonderful for one thing ¢ I can toss and turn and not bother Old Goat at all because the ground doesn¢t move around like a bed does! We enjoyed visiting with the others while we were doing our breakfast. Free Wil (¢one L¢) and Old Goat talked about a piece of equipment that Free Wil was using during his thru-hike ¢ some messaging thing that when he presses a button it sends a pre-prepared note to his wife by satellite (e.g., ¢I¢m okay, down for the night.¢). Old Goat told me about it as we hiked today. It has a GPS in it and can send an emergency message to a company that locates nearby emergency service personnel. If the emergency is such that you can keep moving, the GPS locator shows you are moving and the emergency folks can find you because the relaying company updates your location for the emergency personnel.Pack Mule is flip-flopping the AT ¢ he started in the middle and is going to Maine, then he plans to go back to his start point and go to Georgia. He had started with his girlfriend, but she developed Plantars Fasciitis and had to stop. Of the 5 of us in the shelter at the time, 3 have had trouble with Plantars Fasciitis at one time (Old Goat had seen a podiatrist for it before his 2006 AT hike). It was interesting to see the hail. Right after the hail stopped (but it was still raining quite hard), we passed a man and his son who had set up a tarp over their heads to wait out the rain. They were at the same shelter last night ¢ they sleep in hammocks and put a second large tarp over the hammocks to extra protection, so they had put up one of those tarps, put on dry clothes, and were waiting out the storm. They had gotten cold when it started hailing. They had started out after us from Goddard shelter and stopped at the Kid Gore shelter for lunch soon after we had gotten there, so we had a nice visit with them as we all enjoyed lunch under the sun and with a beautiful view. After lunch we left before them, but they soon passed us, so of course when the rain stopped and they got going again they passed us again on the way to the next shelter.We stopped at the same shelter for tonight, so we asked about their hammocks. Mike, the son, was kind enough to show me how they get into it¢¦.I¢ve never seen a hammock like that before, so I was intrigued. I¢m not interested in using hammocks for our AT hike, but I found them very interesting. When Old Goat and I got in our tent at 6pm because of the rain, Mike and his dad (sorry, dad, I don¢t remember your name¢¦) were sitting under one of the hammocks because the tarp was protecting them. Within an hour I no longer heard their voices, so I think the rain may have been too hard to keep them dry, even under the tarp. That confirmed for me that I don¢t want to even consider hammocks. I enjoyed being able to be with Old Goat in the tent than to have to go to our separate corners¢¦..in two separate hammocks. Plus, I find the closeness of Old Goat to be a great comfort for me. My feet were so-so today. No problems at all with my right foot, but I did develop a near-blister on my left big toe. I will have to do something with it before we start out tomorrow, or I will have a blister for sure. I can¢t count on the change in terrain to ease the pressure points all the time.When we stopped at the Story Spring Shelter for the night I decided to try a different tactic with my wet clothes. Last evening I was worried about getting cold and then having trouble getting warm, so I changed into dry clothes quite quickly, which helped me warm up, but made it so I had to put on soaking wet clothes this morning. Although putting on the soaking wet clothes wasn¢t quite as bad as I feared it would be, and I wasn¢t cold at all throughout the night. So for this evening, I thought maybe my clothes could dry out some if I don¢t change out of them quite so quickly. They did dry out some, but not a lot. My main mistake this evening was leaving my wet socks on longer than I should have. They were way too wet to dry at all, and the cold wetness sucked the warmth out of my feet. When I finally put on dry socks, my feet were very cold. Putting my jacket on them didn¢t help, so I put my feet in my sleeping bag. 45 minutes later they were still just as cold, so I told Old Goat. This is one of my huge fears about starting the AT in cold weather ¢ I¢ll have to learn how to get my feet and myself warm as soon as possible when we stop hiking each day until the weather warms up!   Old Goat had me put my feet under his legs and they warmed up quickly, but when it¢s ice cold outside neither of us can have our sleeping bags opened for me to use his body heat to get warm and we don¢t have sleeping bags that can zip together as one big bag.Since we had gotten into our tent at 6pm, and had nothing to read (as Old Goat already mentioned), we talked for a while then he fell asleep. I, again, couldn¢t get to sleep for the longest time ¢ I think I slept well from about midnight to about 4am. Not enough! I hope I can relax and sleep better when we are doing our thru-hike.