Day 17 - Long Trail

We only had 7.5 miles to town, but we had no idea how long those 7.5 miles would take.  Vermont miles seem to be longer than regular miles sometimes!  We left camp at about 7:30, promising to see Redwood and Slowpoke in Johnson.  We immediately began the 0.4-mile ascent of Whiteface in the hot and humid morning sun.  I actually got spiderwebs all over me, and even a spider in my mouth at one point... So to see the top of the mountain couldn't come soon enough!  Drenched in sweat before 8 am, we reached the top and began an immediate and steep descent back down the other side. 

This blaze looks like it is falling off the other blaze... Which is how we get down off the mountains. 

When we had gone about 2 miles, the terrain eased up on us a little and became more gentle.  By the time we reached Bear Hollow shelter, we had begun following old roadbeds.  The GMC should take note of how nice these trails were.  Water bars and proper drainage and footing made for fast and easy miles for us this morning.  These trails are obviously snowmobile or cross country ski trails.  There is no way The LT would make a trail this nice!  We crossed some large bridges and an active log staging area before being deposited on an actual roadbed.  From here it was a mere 1.5 miles to town! 

We got to Vermont 15 at only 10:15 and threw our thumbs up to get into Johnson.  Within 10 minutes we had a ride and went to the store for a resupply.  We stocked up on food and grabbed some Chinese food for lunch.  We also had noticed there was an outdoors store just outside town, so I ran in and bought the only two pairs of PhD Smartwool socks they had in stock- in my size and the style I normally hike with!  It was such good luck they had socks for me.  Wearing a pair of NoKey's was going to be tough for the next few days to be sure. 

We got picked up by the kind people at Nye's B&B.  They did our laundry and we took cold showers to escape the humid and hot 90-degree day.  We ate junk food and checked our messages before heading out for dinner.  I had a huge Thanksgiving Dinner plate and NoKey had a London Broil.  We also got to see Redwood and Slowpoke in town! 

The lovely 215-year-old farm we are staying at tonight. 

Our gear and bodies are cleaned up for the final stretch of the trail!  Based on trail conditions I am thinking it will take 3.5 days of hiking to finish the trail.  The shelters are spaced apart just a little too far for a feasible hiking day and there is rain in the forecast soon.  We are hoping for cooler temps soon! 

A few more of the farm buildings at Nye Valley Farm. 

Video Blog - Sterling Pond in Smuggler's Notch

A quick video from Sterling Pond, the resting place where we took a siesta! 

Day 12 - Long Trail

We got up at 6:15 after a chilly night of sleeping in our rain gear.  We heard rain for a few minutes, but thankfully it didn't stick around.  We planned on a short 13.8 mile day just in case it turned out to be as tough as yesterday.  We began by climbing up Mt. Grant and doing some short ups and downs to the Sunset Ledge.  The trail was very wet, muddy, and overgrown this morning with lots of slick rocks.  We were walking in fog up to the ledge and got a small view down toward South Lincoln before heading down to Lincoln Gap.  

A reminder that alpine vegetation is fragile. 

At the gap we began climbing our first official 4000-foot peak - Mt. Abraham.  There were quite a few day hikers heading up to the peak and the first 1.7 miles of the hike went quickly.  We reached the Battell shelter and then things changed.  We had crazy slick rock slabs for 0.9 miles all the way to the top.  We were climbing in the fog and the cold breeze before finally reaching the alpine summit.  It was too chilly to stay for long, so we climbed back down into the trees before having lunch.

No views on Abraham! 

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the clouds, climbing and descending Lincoln Peak, Nancy Hanks Peak, Cutts Peak, and Mt. Ellen all in the fog and all crossing ski slopes without any blazes in sight.  When we finally made our way toward Orvis Overlook we had our first view of the day toward Lake Champlain.  We then began climbing up General Stark Mountain and were treated to beautiful views of the Whites and Camel's Hump from the top at Stark's Nest, an indoor shelter on the LT that is a ski warming hut during the winters at Mad River Glen.

The gorgeous view from Stark's Nest! 

It was only 2:30 when we got here and we only had 3.4 miles down to the road... No problem, right?! We could get to the post office before 5 pm and pick up our box!  Once again, the Long Trail had other plans for us!  After descending steeply down a ski slope and some rock stairs, we ran into a kink... Metal rungs in the side of the rock.  This Moosilauke-like hiking continued, wooden ladders and metal rungs kept appearing before we finally hit the Theron Dean shelter.  We thought from here it would be a bit easier to get down to the gap, but we were wrong again!  More steep rocks and metal rungs kept showing up, alternating with mud and swamps.  We kept seeing the road and hearing the traffic only to turn away from it!  Eventually we even began walking uphill!  At 4:25 we hit the gap and were horrified to find there was no place to hitch a ride in the direction we were trying to go.

We did, however, get some amazing trail magic here... Rich, the hiker we met from Wisconsin the day we left Inn at Long Trail, had just made it back to his car at the gap and graciously offered us a ride into town.  We picked up our box at the post office with 20 minutes to spare!  We did some grocery shopping and got some super glue for NoKey's shoes before getting a shuttle to the Hyde Away Inn.  We had huge dinners and took showers while getting our laundry done!  Tomorrow we also get a free breakfast and a ride back to the trail!   Camel's Hump and a 16-mile day await us... With a full resupply and a 9 am start that won't be easy.

Video Blog - riding down the mountain!

Taking the gondola down Killigton for free - like a boss! 

Day 6 - Long Trail

We slept in a little later due to not being in the shelter.  We left camp around 8 am and began our walk around Little Rock Pond and up to White Rocks Cliff.  Up top we found not one but two cairn gardens!  It's very cool to see how creative everyone is with rock art!  From here it was a quick and easy downhill past the Greenwall Shelter and down past a waterfall at Bully Brook.  We had just crossed a gravel road and were going steeply downhill to VT 140 when NoKey turns his ankle and falls downhill.  He took a bad tumble, but thankfully didn't hit his head on one of the many large rocks.

Little Rock Pond

We then began our climb up Bear Mountain, which was definitely harder than I remember on our thru hike in 2012!  We also saw a porcupine in the forest on our way up, which was pretty exciting.  We reached the summit and were pretty tired, but we carried on downhill to the Minerva Hinchey Shelter for lunch.  When we came down this stretch of trail in 2012, we saw a work crew installing water bars and building land bridges over drainage pipes.  This trail was beautiful and dry!  

A cairn garden on White Rocks Cliff

After lunch we climbed a steep hill behind the shelter before heading down into Clarendon Gorge.  We saw two large groups of boys that couldn't have been older than 10 or 11 and they were looking pretty tired.  The hill going down into the gorge is incredibly steep!  We reached the swinging bridge and continued across the road to climb up and out of the gorge.  This climb out was no joke, a boulder-strewn crevice going about 700 feet straight up.  We reached the top of the hill and the Clarendon Shelter before heading up to Beacon Hill.

The view of Clarendon Airport on the north side of the gorge. 

We were starting to get pretty tired at this point and finally began walking downhill, passing lots of weekenders on their way up to the Clarendon Shelter.  When we got to a certain road crossing, we began looking for the elusive secret shelter.  Someone going SoBo told us they had no luck finding it and I can see why. I followed my directions and found nothing.  I asked a man out in his driveway and he told me he knew where it was, but said it was more than 1.25 miles away.  We followed his directions and didn't find it, so we hiked on to the Governor Clement shelter for the night, making for another 19 mile day!  Tomorrow we are only heading 10.4 miles because our resupply is at the post office in Killington and we can't pick it up until Monday morning.  We will take two near-o days instead of a zero to save some money!

Video Blog - the view on Bromley

The view from Bromley, a ski peak in Vermont. 

Day 5 - Long Trail

I got up early with Low Profile and NoKey to make coffee and breakfast before our hike out of town.  Last night the three of us pooled money to make steaks, baked potatoes, asparagus, and salad for dinner.  We also bought breakfast sausage and nectarines for the morning.  Green Mountain House supplied coffee, eggs, and cereal for a huge and delicious breakfast.  We said goodbye to Low Profile and NoKey, Stretch, and myself headed out to the trail at 8 am.

Me, NoKey, and Stretch. 

We immediately began our climb up Bromley, which was nice and gentle nearly all the way up.  Wen we were about a quarter mile from the top our trailed joined a ski slope so it got incredibly steep!  We were treated to an amazing view up top and Stretch caught up to us at this point.  We hiked together down to Mad Tom Notch, passing a few day hikers.  From here, we climbed up to Styles Peak for another view looking east and then the trail dipped down and back up to Peru Peak.  We headed down to the Peru Peak shelter for lunch and met Steam, another Long Trail NoBo.

Me standing on Bromley in the morning sun. 

From the shelter, we walked past Griffith Lake and had mostly level walking until we hit a sign that said "Baker Peak 0.1."  This 0.1 is a straight up rock climb!  We were thankful it was overcast because in 2012 we did this climb in the late afternoon sun!  We had beautiful views at the top and then made our way downhill toward Lost Pond shelter.  When we got here a SoBo told us there was beer at the road, which was about 3 miles away.  We had planned on taking a break here, but we decided to try and catch the trail magic ahead. We walked downhill some more and passed Bernardo, another Long Trail NoBo, and kept walking to Big Branch shelter.  NoKey left me to filter water while he ran to the road for the magic.  I carried five liters of water uphill to the road crossing and met him about half an hour later to find no magic was anywhere.

NoKey climbing Baker Peak. 

We took a break for a while as we had been planning to do that earlier until we chased down the empty trail magic.  Our original plan was to stealth camp tonight because Little Rock Pond shelter is a pay per person site.  We took a long break and decided to head up to the shelter anyway. We made it about 0.1 from the shelter and saw a pretty nice tent site and decided to set up camp.  We already had plenty of water so we were good for the night.  The temperature was a little cooler than we expected so it will make for great sleeping weather!

Video Post - another fire tower on day 3

This view is from Stratton Mountain in Vermont - the peak where Benton MacKaye envisioned the Appalachian Trail in the early 1900s.

Day 1 - Long Trail

We got a later start than we had planned, but we hit the trail in North Adams at about 11:30 after meeting some trail angels who offered to let us leave our car with them.  We immediately began a gentle uphill climb, passing the Sherman Brook campsite and Pete's Spring.  This spring has an effervescent quality, the water bubbling out of the sandy bottom.  I chugged a bottle and we headed on up the hill to Eph's View and the Vermont state line!

We made it, again! 

We had a short lunch here and began doing some ups and downs, meeting people every mile or so - both NoBo and SoBo.  After doing a few more miles we reached some power lines at the highest point of our day, 2800 feet, to find a beautiful view of the Adirondacks to one side and Vermont mountains to the other.  We also found a bonus at the power lines - fresh raspberries!  We are handfuls and then began our descent down to our stop for the night at Congdon shelter.

Roaring Branch Pond

On the way in we walked across bog bridges and through a bog.  We got a few photos since it was raining on us during this part of our thru hike back in 2012.  We made it to the shelter about 6:30 and met a dozen or so hikers.  Several people we saw hiking this afternoon showed up as well.  I would guess there are between 14-18 people here, which is about three times as many as we saw on the whole finger lakes trail!  We had dinner and settled in for an early night at about 8:30.  Vermont is a lot less muddy than it was in 2012!

Podcast Post!

We were recently featured on the podcast N2backpacking talking everything from the Benton MacKaye Trail to our favorite pieces of gear.  Give it a listen when you have an hour to kill!  

http://n2backpacking.com/episode-28-the-benton-mackaye-trail/

Day 11- Finger Lakes Trail

We got another decently early start, but not as early as 46er!  He was headed out trying to make good miles to get into Bainbridge.  He was up nearly before the sun came out!  We headed out and did some more fairly level and easy walking for most of the morning. The trails are still incredibly wet and flooded in many parts, but the humidity was gone and the sky was blue today.  The thing about it finally NOT raining is that the mosquitos are crazy thick today!  They were even thicker when we hit our first road walk.

A placid pond in Pharasalia Wildlife Management Area

We got back into the woods and had some fairly uneventful walking.  We had slathered ourselves with picaridin to keep the bugs away and eventually walked through a CCC camp and across an old dam before slathering up again. We did a lot more walking through mixes of pine forest and boggy mess before coming to the side trail for the lean-to where we planned to eat lunch.  As we headed in we ran into the caretaker for the place and talked to him for a while before taking our break.  

Beautiful cascades on our downhill walk. 

From here, we did some steep downhill near a creek with beautiful waterfalls before coming back uphill and through more state forest.  This time, the forest was being actively logged and was pretty loud and messy.  We hopped off trail and did some road walking until we got away from it and then headed down to the Otselic River. From here it was more up and down before we finally made it to our campsite for the night on Bucks Brook.  This looks like the area used to have bigger sites and probably was a side trail (evidence of old signage and colored blazes.)  The area is pretty washed out and buggy now though.  We set up our tent and cooked dinners.  We hungrily ate and climbed in early - 6 pm!  It's nice to be away from the mosquitos. 

Day 10 - Finger Lakes Trail

We woke up early again to have breakfast with our hosts before heading back to the trail.  We ended up going to a diner with them before being dropped off back at Stone Quarry Hill Road, stuffing ourselves on eggs, potatoes, sausage and bacon.  We cannot thank the two of them enough for all their hospitality!  I really hope we can repay them one day.

We started our hike this morning with a field walk and then a beautiful walk in to a lean-to.  It obviously gets a lot of traffic but was clean enough.  We did some more walking that was mostly flat through pine forests before coming to a combination trail/snowmobile trail.  The trail became steeper downhill and, just as we got to the open part of the road, we were hit with a downpour!  We always seem to time our road walks with either heavy rain or blinding sun! Ha!  We walked for about 1.5 miles on this open road before turning back to the woods just as the rain stopped.

NoKey walking in the forest

We reached Bowman Lake State Park and had planned on taking a hot shower here, but we were already soaked so we just sat under the overhang at the shower house, drying out with the hot hand dryers.  The state park was completely empty.  The snack bar still wasn't open for the summer and the rainy skies probably didn't make for many people looking to go swimming!  We began walking uphill through mushy ground and bogs.  All the rain has really made for nasty trails - ankle deep mud and stream crossings where the bridges begin in the middle of the stream because the banks have been breached!  At least we have water.

I think the water MIGHT be a little high! 

Toward the highest point of the day, an old fire tower, we began a road walk and the sun came out.  When we reached a paved road we noticed it was only 1 mile from our trail junction down to a restaurant/bar so we headed down to the Balsam Inn for 1.50 beers, chicken wings, and a cheesesteak with fries!  We even got a free bowl of popcorn so I consider it time well spent! We walked back up to the trail feeling full and happy.

The fire tower in the background and a farm.  

When we made it back into the woods it wasn't far to the lean-to we planned on crashing in for the night.  As we came around the bend and we're looking for the trail up we hear someone yelling "Sprinkles & NoKey?!"  It was 46-er, the hiker who helped me out by sending me a spreadsheet with the real mileage and better landmarks for the FLT.  He is near the end of his thru hike and we were happy to run into him. It was also very nice to camp with someone too!  We talked trail conditions and gear, as well as other hikes we have done.  We had a wonderful night getting to meet him!

I also want to take time to mention this AMAZING shelter.  An open air privy (with "in use" traffic cone), rocking chair, benches, a picnic table, water feature, and memorial bench for Ed Sidote - Mr. Finger Lakes Trail.  This shelter is obviously the pride and joy of the caretaker, who keeps it stocked with firewood and clean drinking water.  He even provided a map with the nearest cell phone coverage.  Thank you to the Bullthistle Hiking Club!

Day 9 - Finger Lakes Trail

We got up really early to have breakfast with Steve and Deb, coffee with home fries and fresh cheese. We sat with Steve until around 8, when the post office opened, grabbed our resupply and headed out of town.  Some people driving by stopped us to talk as they were from the Yellow Deli - a hostel system with two AT hostels.  We headed down the trail from here, road walking out of town.  We had a lot of road walking to do today and we got rained on pretty much every time we stepped onto the road this morning. We also missed where the trail went back through a field and ended up doing  much longer road walk than anticipated!  It was still very pretty as we were walking uphill through a rural neighborhood with lots of field.

A misty day in the fields  

We alternated woods and road walking several times and took a high water bypass in the early afternoon.  As soon as we were walking on the road I saw a bear go darting across the street.  We saw a bag of garbage on the other side of the road and guessed we interrupted his meal. We did a whole lot of road walking from this point before heading back into a sopping wet field and a nasty wet and flooded trail.  It was supposed to be scenic waterfalls but it was honestly just a mess.  We did some more road walking and decided to check cell phone coverage before heading on.

We rang it... And it was LOUD! 

I had a message from a blog follower saying she could help us out if we were having a tough time finding a place to camp. Since we were on mostly private land and had already done 17.5 miles (2:30 pm), we decided to shoot her a message.  She offered to let us stay at her house in their camper and we agreed to meet her at 6 pm at a road crossing.  This gave us the energy we needed to do some more uphill pasture walking before coming to a microwave tower (seriously, what are these things?!) and then doing yet another long road walk in the afternoon sun.

The first time we have seen these green signs on our trip! 

Amy, along with her kids, picked us up with cold Gatorade and water waiting.  She drove us back to her place and introduced us to her husband who welcomed us with open arms.  They fed us dinner, let us shower, did our laundry, and even gave us beer and ice cream until we thought we would explode.  We talked about some of our past adventures and showed Amy our gear to help her prep for some upcoming hikes.  It was an amazing end to a 22-mile day.

Day8 - Finger Lakes Trail

We hit our 100 mile mark sometime this morning!  We woke up early, but we wanted ice cream so we couldn't leave until 9 am. We left the shelter and headed uphill through a beautiful spruce forest, weaving in and out of hardwoods and spruce for most of the morning.  We walked down into the small and pretty China Gorge, only to climb back out and down to Schear Road to our first stop of the day.  Our map said County Cream (aka The Penguin) was a must stop, so we added nearly a mile to our hike to walk down to it. We filled up on chicken tenders, onion rings, French fries, and ice cream.  They have the coolest machine that makes nearly 151,000 combinations of ice cream!

I love spruce forest! 

After this, we had a full and pretty uneventful walk into Masonville, where two very hot and dehydrated hikers stopped at the General Store for cold drinks.  Inside we found more of a food co-op than average general store!  It was amazingly refreshing to get natural drinks and sit out of the heat for a few minutes before heading down the long road walk to Bainbridge.  Thank you to Kendal, the owner, for letting us sit and talk for a few minutes before heading down the road!

When you see this giant ice cream beacon, you run - don't walk! 

We met a nice couple, Steve and Deb, who said we could stay with them in an extra apartment they owned in Bainbridge while we were there.  We started the hot road walk and got picked up quickly by a guy named Nate who asked us if we wanted a ride. Since we were already sunburned and dehydrated we accepted, and he dropped us at the Bainbridge Laundromat.  We did laundry and grabbed a bite to eat at Jerry's Inn across the street before setting up for the night with Steve and Deb.  We are so thankful to be inside as the recent stomfront moving across the country is pouring rain down on NY yet again.  They are calling for rain all night and most of the week.  Tomorrow we head west yet again!

Day 7 - Finger Lakes Trail

We started out the day in a drizzle, but by the time we got about 2 miles in the rain stopped and the skies started to clear. We started this hike on private property and walked back into NYC land.  We hit an old road bed and really started making good time before the stinging nettles got high and we had to start bushwhacking through them for a short stretch.  We both got pretty cut up, but by the time we reached Loomis Brook the sky had turned blue and we crossed the slick and swift stream to the road.  

Stinging nettle bushwhacking time! 

We had a beautiful view of the Cannonsville Reservoir again.  Jim and Monica told us last night that five towns were flooded to create this one in the 1960s.  It's a really sad subject for a lot of the locals here and the city buys up every single piece of property they can to make more reservoir.  

The Cannonsville Reservoir

From here, we went back uphill to our first lean to in several days... To our surprise we saw walkable trails and a very nice place!  This is where our hike is changing again.  The trail from here all the way to Cold Spring Lean to was beautiful - big bridges over the mud, bridges over the streams, paths cut into the high grass, switchbacks... This is the first time since we started a week ago we have seen maintenance like this since we were on Slide Mountain in the Catskills. We had walkable trail and made it to our stopping point very early in the afternoon.  After yesterday's 21 miles an easy day sounded great.  We will have a few easy days coming up now if the terrain stays great like this. 

I even had time to do yoga tonight in the shelter before dinner!! 

Warrior 2 takes root in Cold Spring Shelter

Day 6 - Finger Lakes Trail

Super adventure day!  So today was the big day- we had a huge mileage day to make it out of Downsville and off DEP land. We didn't have a set plan, but we had a few idea as to what we could do to get off the NYC owned land.

 

We began with a road walk out of Downsville before turning up an old logging road and beginning walking uphill.  The road got rough and muddy, but since it was an active logging site the road was walkable.  After a few miles the trail turned to go downhill and became a DEC horse trail.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to get much use and had become quite overgrown with a few very large blowdowns.  We reached the bottom and walked through a big field to a snowmobile trail bridge and a small waterfall on East Trout Brook.  We now had another big climb along snowmobile trails before coming to another road before lunch.

Going over a blowdown so big I had hang off the one side by my arms! 

The waterfall on the snowmobile trail. 

We were making fast and easy miles and had already done 12 miles before noon.  From here it was easy walking to a cell phone tower before a steep downhill section and a long road walk.  The bad thing about the road walking?  It was midday by this point, so the midday sun was blazing and we were very hot. By the time we got down Houck Mountain Road to Beers Brook it was about 2:30 and we both had minor sunburns.  The road was scenic though and we got a few breezes.

Since we could hear gunshots in the distance, we were supposed to walk the road instead of the trail - the DEP trains on this part of the trail.  We road walked on Route 10 and turned up Rainbow Lodge Rd to go the 1.1 miles to Rainbow Lodge.  Ellen, a waitress, stopped and asked if we wanted a ride up the road.  She was going to the same place so we hopped in and arrived at Rainbow Lodge around 4 pm to delicious food and VERY cold beers.  We met the staff and some friendly locals and talked trails with them.  We tried to figure out our next move and NoKey was showing someone at the bar on our map where we were trying to go. It turns out the couple sitting next to that person owned the land we were aiming for and offered to let us camp at their property!  

We left with them and went with them to their property, which was adjacent to the DEP land where camping is illegal.  Severe thunderstorms were forecasted and the couple who owned the land offered to let us stay inside one of their houses instead.  This was an incredibly generous offer and we were just floored at how our luck had changed.  We walked nearly 21 miles before 4 pm today and were so tired.  We had planned on stealthing and setting up after dark.  All we wanted was to take off our shoes and instead we got hot showers and a roof over our heads. Thank you so much to the Tarantino's for letting us stay on their property.  This incredibly generous act changed our night for the better and we really appreciated it! 

We hiked so fast and hard NoKey burned holes in his socks today! 

Day 4 - Finger Lakes Trail

We made it through the the whole night and woke up to a morning WITHOUT rain!  Blue skies awaited us and we got a pretty early start.  We began with an immediate steep climb up to Beech Hill, and this climb didn't mess around!  We went straight up to the top and walked through rock formations and stinging nettles that were thigh high. Even with my knee length gaiters I still got nailed.

Walking between rocks, like we did 10 times today. 

We made it up to Beech Hill and were treated to an amazing view of Little Pond, which is fed by Big Pond, where we camped last night.  We had a flat, albeit muddy, section of hiking before ascending steeply, through more rock formations to the top of Middle Mountain, before coming straight down the hill to Mary Smith Road.  This parking area was great because there was a bench! A bench is a huge deal to a hiker!  We took a short lunch break here to wring out our wet socks before beginning another steep climb.

The view from Beech Hill ooking at Little Pond. 

We once again had an incredibly steep climb up to Mary Smith Hill, which I think could be changed to mountain because this thing was steeper than the last one!  We climbed through more rock formations in stinging nettles up to our thighs (noticing a theme yet), only this time we both took a spill or two landing hands first in the nettles too!  The steepest section of the entire Finger Lakes Trail (according to our map) was coming down this trail to the next road crossing.  It was no joke and it took us longer to get down it (through rock formations and thigh-high nettles) before coming down to Holiday Brook Road.  From here, we had a road walk into the town of Downsville, where there was a motel and food!

Walking into Downsville, NY

The road walk was long, but we walked along the Pepacton Reservoir, which is where the town of Pepacton used to be before New York Coty decided they needed the water from the Delaware River more than these people needed a town.  The reservoir is HUGE and had lots and lots of "no trespassing" signs since it is the NYC public water supply.  This reservoir was beautiful and incredibly clean. 

We made it to Downsville at 5 pm and checked in to the Downsville Motel, taking showers and then walking the FLT over the historic covered bridge and down into town to have nearly 1-lb hamburgers at the SchoolHouse Inn, a restaurant that used to be a schoolhouse, built in 1908.  We stopped by the fire station, the only place in town with a cell phone signal, to make some texts before heading back to the motel to crash for the night.

Walking the covered bridge into town, built in 1856. 

Day 3 - Finger Lakes Trail

It poured down rain in buckets for most of the night, so we were incredibly grateful for the shelter!  Another late start waiting for the rain to clear, but it wasn't too bad since we had time and space to dry out our soaked tent in the shelter.  We began our day with a wet hike, both of us wearing gaiters since the trail description warned of stinging nettles and briars.  The trail was incredibly wet and we even ended up fording a stream by accident looking for the trail - this trail is not well-marked for westbound hikers!  After seeing some beautiful small cascades on Beaverkill Creek and walking some old roadbed we came to our first trailhead, which indicated our big climb of the day.

Beaverkill Stream. 

The trail started out fairly gradual but then took a turn straight up the mountain to the highest point on the Finger Lakes Trail - Balsam Lake Mountain, at just over 3500 feet.  We didn't go up to the fire tower because it was heavily overcast and we just wanted to get the next 3.9 miles done and hopefully avoid the rain.  This section of trail had lots of new growth so the small trees were very thick.  Thankfully it was free growth and not a lot of briars like the BMT was.  Just as we were about to reach the high point of the ridge again, the sky turned very dark and a thunderstorm rolled in.  We met a large group of young guys who said the shelter wasn't close, and we all ran down the mountain in the coldest rain I've experienced in a long time!  

About 30 minutes of rain was followed by a short period of sunshine, just in time for us to get to the shelter for our lunch break.  We were freezing cold, but we discovered that it was only 2 pm so we were pretty happy about that as we still had about 4.5 miles left to hike and it felt much later.  We had some fairly flat walking to Alder Lake and then is when it got bad. 

The view from Alder Lake- we saw two Bald Eagles here! 

Remember when I mentioned this trail isn't well-marked for westbound hikers?  Well, we made an epic mistake.  See, our guide is only written eastbound and uses words like right and left, so you always have to read a word and think opposite. We had a short road walk from Alder Lake to our next trailhead and we saw a split in the road with a red disc marker (the trail we were following).  Our trail went up and this red marker went up, so we did too.  HUGE MISTAKE.  I started feeling like something was wrong. I got out the compass and discovered we were going northeast and we are clearly westbound hikers!  The road we were on turned west so we kept going.  Then we started going downhill very steeply.  I stopped.  We were definitely going the wrong way!

After I had a mini meltdown and cried a little we had to backtrack.  We had easily walked 2.5 miles in the wrong direction, but we kept thinking we were okay because the guidebook was pretty vague : see large rocks on your left, see stone wall on the right.  After we backtracked we had lost nearly 3 hours and it was 6 pm.  We decided to just go back and camp at Alder Lake and see if those kids who got caught in the rain with us were still there.

This is when we met Richard and Amy.  They were just out for a drive and killing time.  I told them I'd give them some gas money if they would drive us to the campsite we were supposed to be at and they said no problem.  They saved our day in a huge way since we were going to have to do huge miles to make it to our Dropbox after my mistake.  We got set up at Big Pond campground and the rain moved in AGAIN while I was filling our water.  We ate quickly and jumped in the tent for a late bedtime.  Tomorrow we have some big miles to pull if we are going to make it to our drop in Downsville on Thursday.  We are an entire day behind schedule due to having such a hard time getting to the trail on our first day and the rain.

Thanks again Amy and Richard for getting us to our trailhead!  Always follow your compass, hikers!  If something feels wrong, don't keep hiking!

Remnants of a mansion on Alder Lake. 

Day 1 - Finger LakesTrail

Getting to the trail was definitely an adventure today! NoKey's dad had to work this weekend so our ride to the trail fell through.  After getting a friend (thank you, Darryle!) to drive us to Ithaca, we took the bus to Binghamton and then to Monticello, where we got lucky and got a taxi.  Lucky is the word I use because we met Rock- he's a hiker and he knew where we needed to go ... Well, sort of!  We got us to the YMCA in Frost Valley, which I just assumed would be a building but no!  It was an enormous camp encompassing the entire valley, which is on both sides of the mountain range in the middle.  In the end we got to the Slide Mountain trailhead, but not the RIGHT Slide Mountain Trailhead.  Instead of a 1 mile up and back, we had 4 miles one way to the FLT eastern terminus.  We dubbed it bonus miles and walked it happily. 

From here, it was 1 mile to the parking lot where we started our very long road walk.  We walked about 2 more miles before coming to the only campsite we could legally use, so we gladly stopped since it was already 5:30.  We built a campfire and had small dinners before calling it a night.

Don't go any further! Unless you're on foot!  

A cool totem we saw on our road walk! 

Day 20 - Benton MacKaye Trail

Our last day is finally here!!  Everyone was up and moving around at 7:30 and we were in a hurry to get moving.  Even though the forecast predicted rain, we woke up to sunshine and we were in a race with the weather.  Mt. Sterling, the highest point on the BMT at more than 5800 feet, was waiting for us and I wanted NoKey to get the view I think is the best in the Smokies.  We did a quick 5.8 miles in less than 2.5 hours to get to the top by 10:45 am.  We were definitely rewarded! 

Looking at the AT from Mt Sterling on a nearly perfectly clear morning! 

From here, we got a few texts out to my family to let them know we would be done by 1:30 and shot off down Baxter Creek Trail for a 4000-foot elevation loss down to Big Creek Campground. 

Finally! We won't be walking in horse poo!! 

We made it down the hill in 2 hours and finished the trail at 1:20 pm.  There were tons of people picnicking in the day use area, so we were able to get a photo of the two of us together at the terminus of the BMT with my homemade sign.  It was a great feeling to have sunny skies to finish this tough trail. 

We did it! 

I will be writing a recap of the BMT in a few days and sharing it with you all.  This trail had three very distinct sections, broken up every 100 miles or so.  It feels great to be back home in a temperature controlled environment with comfy beds, but two more trails await us this summer!