Date: 2017-07-07
From: Killington

To: Thistle Hill Shelter
Miles today: 28.9

I'm up early with only 5 hours sleep but feel refreshed. Motel owner Steve has laid out a great spread of fruits, hardboiled eggs, OJ, and yogurt, plus he makes made-to-order chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup from a tree up the road. His hobby is roasting coffee beans. He has large burlap sacks of AA arabica beans around the lobby from all the best coffee regions. Honduran is served with breakfast. I'm no coffee drinker but it's great stuff. He sells online under Killington Coffee Roasters.Pleasantly full, I stop at the mini-market next door for a minor resupply of snack bars and a sandwich for the road. I walk down the rural highway to the outfitters where they replace my trekking pole tips. One was completely bent and no longer providing reliable support. I've relied on them heavily for everything from scaling hills to braking on downhills to being third and fourth legs as I negotiate mud and other obstacles. I left my pack outside at the outfitters and the top open as I had taken out my "wallet" (a Ziploc baggy). When I come out to bang the new tips in, a cocker poodle is standing over my deli sandwich which is dumped all over the porch. The poodle can't believe her good fortune, but before she can react I grab everything and throw it back together. Yes, I ate it later. Back on trail near 10am I pass tranquil Kent Pond and soon Thundering Falls. The rivulets diverting, joining, and splitting again as they cascade over the bedrock is mesmerizing. Tourists come up from the gravel road.I meet more southbounders today. Now five total plus one I missed. Soon they will be routine. One says he's doing his first 20 mile day. He's almost 500 miles into his hike. That tells you how tough NH and Maine are. A northbounder passes us who is finishing a section southbound for logistical reasons. He gives valuable information about huts in the White Mountains and work for stay. This is a fantastic deal where you get free food and shelter that weekenders pay high prices for in exchange for some trivial chore. The huts are taking almost everyone for work-for-stay, contra the two person limit per hut that everyone says. The Vermont Youth Conservation Corps is working on the trail today, breaking up rocks to throw in muddy areas and trimming vegetation. Young people join the VYCC for six week stints for minimal pay and backcountry food and lodging. The local AMC trail club hires them to help with trail maintenance. We thank them profusely for their efforts. They could use a few crews in southern Vermont.There's a farm store 20 miles down trail that sells ice cream and cold drinks, but they close at 5:30. I reluctantly accept I won't make it and just enjoy the hike. I intend to do 22 or 23 miles, leaving a 20 mile walk into Hanover tomorrow as the earliest train won't leave until Sunday morning. But something has come over me and I start tearing up the trail. I dash up Mt Quimby, a steep 1200 foot climb over a mile and a quarter, and practically fly through the downhills using my trekking poles to keep me airborne. Maybe it's the spinach salad and breakfast fruit. Maybe it's the well graded and groomed trail. Maybe the cool temperature and breeze. Maybe I finally got my trail legs (and lungs). Whatever the case, the miles melt away. Where I normally would have missed the farm store by over an hour, I now waltz in with Bad News behind me a full 45 minutes before it closes. I can hardly believe how fast I got here. After some Hershey's ice cream, homemade cookies, ice tea, and maple soda I'm sluggish but ready to tackle another 9 miles to the shelter. It will turn into a back-to-back 29 mile day when I was supposed to be taking it easy.I hike half the day with Bad News. He's in a gap year out of high school, headed for the Webb Institute to study naval architecture and marine engineering. He was accepted to the Coast Guard Academy until they found a minor color blindness that apparently would make it difficult to read signals. In any case he's excited to start school. He's called Bad News because he would report when it was going to rain.Suddenly we hear leaves rustling and two black bears are running parallel to us on the downhill side about 70 yards off. It's not clear if they notice us but they head into the brush and disappear. Later three deer do notice us and take off running. We descend the hill, cross a road, and climb another hill in a broad arc only to run into the same three does and scare them off again. On the topic of fauna, I also saw several red squirrels yesterday and today. And others report seeing "signs" of moose on the trail. I'm warned never to camp on the trail because moose use it as a highway and will literally trample you. We get caught in an evening shower. The trees protect us from most of it but this is farm country and we traverse many overgrown meadows. The wet grass is very efficient at soaking our shoes and socks. When we rock hop over an overflowing brook Bad News takes a tumble and gets soaked. His trekking pole heads downstream. I scramble along boulders to reach it before it's gone. Fortunately there's a cooler of trail magic sodas to give a happy ending to the ordeal, my first trail magic in Vermont.As the rain ends the full moon rises and mist floats off the valley. We race against dusk to the shelter, only to find it full. Up goes the tent in the dark. I'm very practiced at it now. I'm too tired to hang the bear bag properly, hooking it over a branch at arm's length will have to do. I crawl into the tent, wring out my socks, and plan which all-you-can-eat buffet to hit in Hanover tomorrow.