Big Announcement #4 - Summer 2015

Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for… So far next summer we have announced hiking the Benton MacKaye Trail, The Finger Lakes Trail, The Northville-Placid Trail, and now we’re announcing the final trail - The Long Trail!

Of the four trails we’re hiking next summer, The Long Trail is the most popular and probably the only other trail you’ve heard of!  This trail will be the toughest trail physically for us to hike, running 273 miles from the Massachusetts border to Canada, the length of Vermont.  The Long Trail shares the first 100ish miles with the Appalachian Trail, so the first half of the LT is going to be familiar to us.  The trail breaks off outside of Killington, VT behind the Inn at Long Trail at Maine Junction.  From here, our LT journey will take us into the remote northern part of the state, over the five 4000-foot mountains in Vermont and will be very similar to the hiking trails we saw in New Hampshire and Maine on the Appalachian Trail. 

Not only is this trail going to physically be harder, it’s the trail I am most looking forward to completing, mostly because I really wanted to hike the entire Long Trail on my 2012 AT Thru Hike. Obviously, I didn’t do it, nor did I have the energy after finishing in September 2012, but since that time several of our friends have either hiked the Long Trail or attempted to, making it incredibly enticing to do so. 

You can do more reading about The Long Trail at greenmountainclub.org

Day 129
We woke up at Happy Hill Shelter to an overcast sky, but we were thankfully dry. We think it may have sprinkled a bit overnight, but were glad to see dry gear! We headed out early and ready to cross into state 13! We had fairly easy walking with a nice cool breeze the first 3.5 miles. The trail was nice and soft, covered in pine needles. After only an hour and 15 minutes, we came to Elm Street in Norwich to begin our road walk. We were dreading this, as paved roads are murder on our legs, but it wasn’t too bad! We had three trail magics on our way in to town and got to the bridge over the Connecticut River fairly quickly. Here, we passed into New Hampshire and up the hill to downtown Hanover and Dartmouth. We walked around downtown for a bit and headed straight for the Indian buffet where we ran into Golden, Trekking Pole, Lone Duck, and Dirty Girl all ready to eat! We filled up on food for over an hour before going to pick up our drop boxes at the outfitter. I was psyched to get new shoes, my last pair for the trip! We then called a trail angel who picked us up for showers and laundry. Her neighbor offered us his basement to sleep in for the night and we had a wonderful time with them and two other hikers - Great Lakes and her son Tall Grass. Warren and Toni stayed out on the porch and chatted with us for several hours, even giving us ice cream and beer. Warren mentioned we could zero if we’d like and Nokey is lstarting to feel under the weather, so we decided to make the call in the morning. The photo today is the state line on the bridge.

Day 128
We woke up early from our stealth camp due to the sunrise over the hill. It was a beautiful morning, but my stomach was still killing me. We hiked up a hill this morning to a field, which was soaking wet with dew and filled with mud. I took a wrong step and went up halfway to my knees in mud. I was so glad to not have lost a shoe! We climbed two steep hills, both with balds and views, before coming down to Cloudland Road. We walked up to Cloudland Farms Market to see they were closed. We sat on the porch for several minutes when the owner came and opened up. We bought homemade ice cream and homemade sodas (!) and happily consumed them on the porch. We then made the decision to walk the roads by the farms to see if it looked any better than the trail this morning. Google maps showed us the way and would add mileage to our trip, but our time would be cut down. We started out up the road to a road called Old King’s Hwy. It turns out, this road had been there since 1763 and was historic! We walked past tons of beautiful old farms and cemeteries, saw a few newts, and then talked to a few locals before coming back on trail at Joe Ranger Road. We continued onward toward West Hartford and walked the trail (a paved road) down into town ad to Full Belly Deli. Dirty Girl, Bird Kicker, and Bottlecap were all there. We had lunch and then, since bad weather was coming, decided to wait out the storm under the bridge at the White River. There are two blue blazes on the bridge where it’s deep enough to jump off, so we watched people jump off the bridge all day. The bad weather never came, just lots of lightening and a 15-minute sprinkle of rain, so we decided to head up the hill to Happy Hill Shelter. We had four hills between us and the shelter and we felt them all! The trail was nice and soft pine needles though, so it wasn’t too bad. We got to the shelter fairly quickly and met Lone Duck, two section hikers, and then Golden, Trekking Pole, and two SOBOs showed up as well. We had a wonderful evening with great conversation. The photo today is the dew in the grass at our stealth site.

Day 127
We woke up this morning ready to face all the hills. Secrets and Shenanigans left out first and we told them we’d see them later. After a short downhill out of the shelter, we began the 8 miles of uphill and they were relentless! I hiked alone most of the morning as I had a pretty bad stomachache and Nokey pulled ahead. Around lunchtime i ran into hil waiting at a side trail to a lookout tower. We decided to walk the 2.6 to the shelter together from here, which was supposed to be relatively flat, but was mainly uphill. We got to the shelter and it was a steep downhill on a side trail to it. We got down and went for water, catching up with Great Lakes, Tall Grass, Shaggy, and a SOBO whose name escapes me. We had lunch and then we both ended up falling asleep on the shelter floor for nearly 2 hours! I guess we were tired! After waking up and refilling our water, we decided to hike on a few more miles to stealth camp. We had another “uphill” downhill into Woodstock before we had to steeply climb Dana Hill. This climb took a lot of energy from us, but we did get up and over quickly before coming to the next stream crossing. Since there was water here and we were tired, we decided to set up camp in the field nearby. We crashed early tonight and are hoping to rest well enough to face the hills tomorrow. The photo today is the view coming in to Woodstock.

Day 126
It was tough to leave the Inn at Long Trail, but alas, we must hike! We had a huge breakfast, which was included in the price of our hotel room, consisting of blueberry pancakes with Vermont maple syrup. We were so full and happy! We got an easy hitch back down to the Rutland trail junction and set off up a gentle hill to Maine Junction, which is where The Long Trail and AT go their separate ways. We passed Huff and Puff and headed on to the trail junction with Killington. After misreading our book, taking the wrong side trail, and wasting 40 minutes of our day, we finally got to Kent Pond and the CORRECT side trail junction to the outfitters. We ran up and did a short resupply, got lunch, and I mailed some stuff home. We hung out with Mad Hat for a few hours to beat the afternoon heat before heading back out to conquer Quimby Mountain. We ran into some great trail magic (oranges and bananas!) at the trail reroute at River Road. While we were filling our water, Secrets and Shenanigans showed up. They had taken the old trail and said it was in bad shape from the hurricane. We all headed up the mountain and man was it a tough climb. Over 1100 feet in a mile, our biggest climb in a while! We had three other small, but no less steep, climbs from the top of this hill too before we got some downhill. The downhill was well-graded and had beautiful step work! We reached the Stony Brook shelter in 2 hours and met a SOBO there, a female going solo named Owl. We hung out for a while and Secrets, Shenanigans, and Shaggy all showed up soon after. It was an awesome night for all of us with a great fire. Today’s photo is the sign at Maine Junction.

Day 125
We woke up early this morning at the shelter due to it being packed and people packing up as early as 5:30. I had a hard time waking up and felt a little queasy from all the sugar I’d had yesterday. We left out around 8 and had an uphill to start our day. We climbed up slowly and walked through a few farms before coming to a long detour due to the damage caused by Hurricane Irene last year. Despite warnings the trail was closed, we’d heard it was easily walkable still. I’m glad we trusted our instincts as the trail was the most beautiful we’d seen yet in Vermont. The damage to the valley was evident and amazing. You could see where entire hillsides had washed away and rivers had flowed over. We also reached an important milestone- the 500 miles left mark! We took photos with the sign and moved on to cross another steam, this one where a bridge had washed away along with the road! It was a little harder to cross, but not too bad. We walked up to the Governor Clement shelter and had lunch before beginning our long, steady uphill of Shrewsbury/Killigton Peak. Up and up and up we went for two hours before reaching the Cooper Lodge shelter, which looked more like a cabin. We met up with Secrets and Shenanigans and found out that the steep 0.2 mile side trail behind the shelter lead up to a gondola! We climbed it (seriously, I was on my hands and knees it was so steep) and were treated to the most amazing view I’d seen yet in Vermont! We followed the hiking trail down to the gondola and then rode down to the bike store. We caught a ride down to Killington to get out drop boxes. Nokey’s box didn’t show so we decided to go stay at Inn at Long Trail to wait it out. Secrets, Shenanigans, Dirty Girl, and Shaggy were all there as well. We had a lot of fun catching up with Dirty Girl since we hadn’t seen him in nearly 700 miles! We all had dinner at the pub and took hot showers before calling it a night way too late (after 10 pm!) The photo is the view from Killington Peak.

Day 124
We got ready for an easy morning of fairly level walking and were just about to leave the shelter when Secrets, Shenanigans, Huff, and Puff all walked by! We chatted for a while as we packed up our gear and then we hiked out toward Little Rock Pond. It was fairly easy and we got there quickly, chatting and leap frogging with a few hikers. We came to two cairn gardens along the way and added to them before heading to our third Bear Mountain of the trip. The climb was easy and went quickly. We saw a trail maintenance group building up the trail after all the hurricane damage and doing incredible stone work across the seepage and mud pits. We took a short break at Minerva Hinchey shelter and ran into Roller and Sunkist again. We now had a small uphill and a giant downhill before The Whistle Stop Cafe. The downhill into town was strange. We’d come off beautifully maintained trail to a trail that wasn’t blazed and I got lost several times before making it down. When we finally got down there, I realized I had lost my bite valve on my Camelbak and it was running all over me! We went down to the restaurant and got meatball sandwiches and split 2 liters of rootbeer before we did our final climb, a 500-foot, 0.5 mile rock scramble! The sun was hot and my stomach was killing me, but up and over we went to the Clarendon shelter. It was a beautiful old farm site with fresh flowers, good water, and soft grass. CandyBar, Trekking Pole, Secrets and Shenanigans, and a ton of section hikers were at this place- good thing it’s big! We got a fire going and hung out until 10 pm. It was so great to see Secrets and Shenanigans on trail again. The photo is of just a few hikers hanging out at the shelter.

Day 123
We headed out a little late this morning, but we had something we hadn’t seen in a while: SUNSHINE! We headed up 1 mile to Bromley Mountain, a ski mountain, and were treated to amazing views. We hung out with a ton of hikers up there who all were happy to see the sun. After spending nearly an hour up top, we headed down to Mad Tom Notch (this is what all gaps are called now, notch). From here, we had more ups and downs, none too steep, but all of them giving us sunshine and a view for a reward. We climbed to Styles Peak and had lunch before going down and through some crazy mud for a while before Peru Peak as well. When we got to the Peru Peak shelter, we took a break for a while with Craisin, Shaggy, Huff and Puff, two section hikers, and Smoky (a SOBO). We had a quick 6.4 mile walk to our shelter for the night, Big Branch. We passed several side trails, a pond, and lots and lots of mud before coming upon a beautiful and flowing spring. We hadn’t had spring water in a while, so it was nice to have! We filled up and headed to Big Branch. we were treated to another surprise here, the shelter was actually right next to the creek! Flowing water?! It’s been such a dry summer that it was heaven to hear a huge running stream. Roller and Sunkist also showed up for the night. We finished dinner and I went to do dishes in the stream where, sadly, my Platypus bottle washed away. I’m glad there’s an outfitter in a few days! The photo today is one of the many I took at Bromley Mountain this morning.

Day 121
After sleeping and staying dry all night (what, no rain?!) we woke up and headed for the border! I left earlier than everyone in camp and headed north. The only thin between me and VT was a steep hill with a rock scramble, which has definitely gotten easier for me. When I got to the border, the AT is now concurrent with The Long Trail, which runs the Green Mountains to Canada. From here, I had a lot of undulation with some pretty views of both mountains and ponds. I also found out why Vermont is nicknamed “Ver-mud!” At some points the mud was so thick your trekking pole would get stuck. The mosquitoes were out in full force with the swampy terrain as well. After stopping for lunch on Consultation Peak, Nokey caught up with me as the rain started falling. By the time Testament caught us, it was pouring again so we took a long break in the Congdon Shelter, which had actual working windows and a table inside. We met several other hikers here seeking shelter from the rain. We were soaked and cold, so I decided I wanted to walk to warm up. The rain had turned into a drizzle now, so we walked along the ridge until the steep downhill. The downhill portion was nearly 1100 feet straight down with rock steps. About halfway down Nokey fell and nearly slid off the side of the hill, only staying up because he was holding a wet root. We hiked silently down the hill and when we got to the bottom we took a mental health break. We saw some hikers across the highway getting out of a van and walked over to see who it was. It turned out to be Secrets and Shenanigans doing trail magic! They also had a hiker we met before: Sparrow! He is Testament’s friend who gave us trail magic on day 90! He was out hiking the Long Trail with some buddies. Secrets and Shenanigans gave us a ride to town where we got a hotel room to tend to Nokey’s wounds. He was pretty bloody and battered from his fall. He was pretty sore also. It sucked to spend the money, but he needed to recuperate. Tomorrow, we’ll head out rested and feeling better (and full!) The picture is of me at the border.