Day 13 - Long Trail

We headed out of Waitsfield at 9 am on the shuttle with Simba, a hiker who recently finished the Colorado Trail, and with Messy and Lost Boy.  The first climb of the morning up Baby Stark Mountain and then Molly Stark's Balcony were pretty tough, the rock climbing beginning almost immediately with tough downhills (read rockslides) to follow.  We did actually get some pretty views though and got some photos before moving down to Birch Glen shelter.  We took a quick break here and said hello to Bernard, who was just heading out, and for some water.  The walking from here to Cowles Camp shelter wasn't too bad, not steep or too muddy, and we made it there for lunch.

A typical day on the Long Trail. 

We were eating with Dave and Simba and Bernard showed up shortly after.  We noticed a sign on the wall stating that the next five miles can be expected to take us four to five hours and were pretty surprised being that the profile didn't show that kind of elevation.  We began our climb up to Burnt Rock Mountain and understood why the hike would take so long.  Much like the White Mountains, the GMC has decided that instead of walking upright you would much rather climb up and over large rock features, especially when they're wet.  The climb up was 1.5 miles and took an hour.  I slipped off one of the ropes that you use to rappel (yes, rappel) down the side of a rock and got a nasty rope burn on my left hand. From this point, we entered Ladder Ravine, named so because you have to pull yourself up a wet rock on a rope to a wet metal ladder and climb down it, only to climb back up some more wet rocks.

Ladder Ravine

After Ladder Ravine we had our first Moose sighting, but not the large animal... Our friend Moose was hiking southbound!  We stopped and chatted with him a while and he let us know the trail ahead.  After taking the break the trail mellowed out a bit, only becoming steep a few times and was mostly wet and muddy.  We climbed Ethan Allen Mountain and were treated to some more hazy views as it had been drizzling off and on this afternoon.  

 

The view from Ethan Allen with clouds looming! 

We had a mile downhill to the shelter at this point and made it there pretty uneventfully.  The shelter is very nice, but there was a family headed over the mountain with a pretty obnoxious and loud kid staying in the shelter so we tented.  It started raining right as we cooked our dinner, a short thunderstorm, but thankfully our tent was already set up.  A caretaker showed up to collect our fee (surprise, the guidebook didn't list this one) and we called it an early night after a tough 10.6 miles.

Tomorrow they are calling for rain all day and we have to do at least 15 miles or only about 6.  We may end up taking a side trail as these brutal and masochistic miles today will not bode well in the rain! 

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.

Day 11 - Long Trail

We had a huge breakfast of duck and chicken eggs, homemade bread, and coffee before hitching a ride out of town and back up the mountain.  We were picked up by man driving from Maine to New York and dropped off at the trailhead at 9 am.  We began by climbing steeply up the hill toward Silent Cliffs. We reached the side trail quickly and began climbing Burnt Hill soon after.  It sprinkled a little, but we stayed relatively dry.  We quickly arrived at the Boyce Shelter, which has been closed due to the footings holding up the shelter completely collapsing out from underneath.  We were already up pretty high and made the next few miles past Skyline Lodge toward Emily Proctor shelter pretty quickly.  The trail had started to get pretty soggy and muddy, so we decided to take a lunch break at Emily Proctor Shelter.

NoKey at Emily Proctor shelter

The sun still hadn't made an appearance and we had to put on our rain jackets to eat.  The damp air with the cloudy skies made it pretty chilly!  We began climbing again up to Mt. Roosevelt where the clouds parted a little and we had a beautiful view toward Killington and the surrounding mountains.  We climbed Mt. Wilson and Mt. Cleveland and we were feeling pretty beat from attempting to dodge the mud and stay upright on the wet rocks.  The rain started and stopped two more times, never getting heavier than a sprinkle though.  We finally started to think we had missed our camp at Cooley Glen when we finally got there at 4 pm.

We camped with K1, the writer of the book Three Hundred Zeroes, and Bernard.  We also camped with a father and three teenage boys.  It was a chilly night and we ate huge dinners and crashed early as we were pretty worn out and wet from hiking today.

Day 10 - Long Trail

We woke up at 6 am and it hasn't rained yet so we were pretty excited and ready to hike.  About 6:30, however, the rain began to fall.  The three hikers were going into town for a resupply and the father and son were getting picked up on Thursday so they were hiking on.  We were undecided and started off down trail at 7:45.  As we walked up another ski slope the rain got heavier and soaked us quickly.  It wasn't even a question after checking the radar and seeing rain forecasted all day that we would try to hitch into town! 

We stood at Middlebury Gap for 40 minutes trying to hitch - it was about 55 degrees and pouring rain the entire time!  We had decided to take a ride in either direction and eventually a woman stopped and offered to take us down to Middlebury, 13 miles away.  She dropped us at a food co-op and we had coffee and bagels before trying to find some place to stay.  Unfortunately, Middlebury is quite an expensive place with even cheap rooms running $99 a night and up.  We found a place on the other side of the gap with rooms much cheaper and decided to head back up and over the mountain.

A hiker in the Long Trail Facebook group helped us out by giving us a ride over the mountain.  It would have been incredibly tough to hitch in the pouring rain. He brought us to The Gather Inn, run by Kathleen, and we have been very happy to be clean and dry!  We watched her feed her chickens and ducks, met her sweet cats, and went to a local hotel for dinner.  Hancock is a small and quiet little town on route 100 and we are so happy it's here!

We will head back out to the trail in the morning.  The temperatures are supposed to warm back up and we are hoping for clearer skies!

The Gathering Inn

Chickens! 

The best meatloaf dinner I've ever had was at this old hotel! 

Day 9 - Long Trail

We got up and moving before 7:30 this morning, an early start for our first full day in the more difficult terrain of northern Vermont.  We immediately began climbing Bloodroot Mountain and down into Wetmore Gap (aptly named due to the dew covering everything!) and then began a gentle climb of Farr Peak.  It was then an easy and wide road-like walk down to Sunrise Shelter, our first stop of the morning.  From here, we had a really great view of our first big rocky peak, Mt. Horrid, and the Great Cliffs.  

NoKey on the Great Cliffs

The climb up Mt. Horrid evoked imagery of dragons guarding castles with princesses locked away in towers, but it wasn't that exciting!  We had a tough climb up, but the trail has been maintained very well and we flew up it to the side trail to the cliffs.  The extra 0.2 miles we added to our day were totally worth it for this amazing view!  

From here, we still had to finish climbing Mt. Horrid, which we decided was named this because of the three false summits, and then made the climb up to Cape Lookout Peak.  We had a beautiful view of the valley below before heading down and then quickly up Romance Mountain before coming down to the Sucker Brook shelter.  

Since it was only 1:30 it was too early to stop, but we couldn't make it to the next shelter 8 miles away.  We looked at our map and decided on a point called Lake Pleiad and hoped it wasn't a bog.  First though, we had to climb Worth Mountain, which had a few false summits of its own, and then come down into the Middlebury Snow Bowl, a ski area just outside the wilderness we had been hiking through most of our day.  The ski slopes afforded us beautiful views of our hiking tomorrow through the Vermont Presidential range and we saw the first hikers coming southbound we had seen all day.  They let us know that Lake Pleiad was beautiful for camping AND swimming, which sounded great to us because we had been sweating most of the day.

The view from a ski slope

We got to the camping area and are spending the night with 2014 AT thru hikers Lost Boy and Messy, Messy's cousin, and a father and son from Pennsylvania. We all took a dip in the lake and ate huge dinners before calling it a night.  We are all prepping for rain in the morning since they're calling for a 100% chance all day... Yikes!

Day 8 - Long Trail

After having an amazing and huge breakfast at the Inn at Long Trail, with real coffee might I add, we had to pack our bags and head up the mountain.  Since we were hiking the original Long Trail we headed up Sherburne Pass to the Deer Leap Overlook before heading down to the split of the AT and LT.  This is the giant rock that hovers over the Inn at Long Trail and the view was phenomenal!  We took the AT back to Maine Junction, seeing some of the AT NoBo's we had been camping with for a few days during our time in Vermont.  We reached the split and headed north.  We reached the former site of the Tucker Johnson shelter quickly and met a couple hiking for the week with their hyper and happy dog, Rosebud.  We continued along to the Rolston Rest shelter five miles in and stopped for lunch with Rich from Wisconsin and our friend Dirt Nap.

Killington from Deer Leap Overlook. 

After lunch our day became a little tougher with bigger and steeper climbs than we were used to on the AT section of Vermont.  We also walked through a part of the forest being actively logged, so that was a big change also.  The trail today definitely reminded us a lot of being back on the BMT again!  After crossing paths with a snowmobile trail a few times, we came to an overlook with an obscured view of the mountains to the east.  We took a break to prep for the final part of our day, climbing Mt. Carmel to the David Logan shelter.

Branching off from the AT to northern Vermont! 

We got to the shelter and met a couple we had hiked with a few days ago and Dirt Nap.  Bernard came in a little later and some younger guys showed up near dark who had hiked all the way from Pico Camp!  We had a large campfire and NoKey and I had some IPAs he had packed out of town before calling it a night.

Video Blog - riding down the mountain!

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

Day 7 - Long Trail

We slept in this morning since we thought we had no chance of making it to Killington before 11 am.  We began hiking at 8 am and immediately began our climb of Killington (the mountain, not the town!)  The climb started out gradual, but became much steeper as the miles went by!  We stopped at a beautiful spring about 2/3 of the way up to refill our water and then continued on up the hill, now getting views to the east.

Looking east- I could count five ridge lines when I was looking out that way! 

We reached what is considered the top on the Long Trail at Cooper Lodge Shelter, but the peak of Killington is actually 0.2 miles higher.  We climbed up to get the view and reached the top at 10:30.  We couldn't believe how quickly we hiked 7 miles this morning!  From the top, thru hikers can take a free gondola ride to the resort down the hill.  We did this to kill time since we were planning a short day.  We found out the post office was actually open until noon and a free bus was coming in less than 5 minutes that drove right by!  We hopped on and rode to the post office and the Inn at Long Trail to get a room for the night. We might not have found the Secret Shelter, but our luck today was incredible!  

The amazing view from the very top of Killington! 

From here, we have an easy day hike of the trail, the Sherburne Pass Trail, up to Pico Peak.  Pico is where we were planning to stay tonight, but since we got to town in time we no longer have to camp!  We chose to take the blue blazed Sherburne Pass Trail because it is the original and historic Long Trail.  It was rerouted in 1999 to the present location down the hill.  Since we took the white blaze back in 2012, we decided to blue blaze this time for a change of scenery!  

The Inn at Long Trail!   

Tonight we will get laundry done and have a beer in the Irish Pub while listening to live Irish music. We have an easy day planned out of town tomorrow to help us adjust to the tougher part of the Long Trail.  We say goodbye to the AT in the morning... North to Canada we go! 

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!

Day 4 - Long Trail

We ended up waking up pretty early since everyone in the shelter seemed to be packing up before 6 am!  We got an early start at 7:05 and began our ten-mile trek town.  The trail was very muddy this morning, but we did start out with a beautiful  view of Stratton pond at the very beginning of our hike.  We quickly did the 5 miles to the next shelter in less than 2 hours and the trail came out onto an old roadbed.  

Stratton Pond in the morning light. 

We walked the old and eroded road for about a mile before coming to Prospect Rock, where we were treated to an amazing view of the mountains and Manchester Center, our destination for today!  The next few miles we were focused on getting to town and we definitely got there fast, rolling in before noon! We went to the post office and resupplied at Price Chopper since one of our meals got moldy in our box.  We met an AT NoBo named Low Profile who was also staying at the hostel with us, so we had lunch together and got a ride up to Green Mountain House.

It actually says Long Trail, not Appalachian Trail! 

Jeff, the owner, picked us up and brought us to what can only be described as heaven on earth!  This hostel is a house with a kitchen and private rooms.  You get free laundry AND a pint of Ben and Jerry's with your stay!  I went for the Half Baked.  Our room even had a Finger Lakes Trail poster in it, so I think we were destined to stay here!  Tonight Low Profile, NoKey, and I will be grilling steaks and asparagus for dinner... Can't wait!  

The view from Prospect Rock. 

Video post! Glastenbury Mountain fire tower

View on day 3 of our Long Trail hike in Vermont.  

Day 3 - Long Trail

We started pretty early this morning to make up for lost miles.  We were shocked to see the fire tower on Glastenbury was less than 5 minutes away from the shelter.  I guess our 2012 guide book was wrong!  I climbed up and took some photos and a video and we headed back on our way.  We had a pretty easy morning and the first eight miles went by before 11 a.m.  We stopped for lunch at the Story Spring Shelter and four other NoBo's showed up nearly right behind us and we all had lunch together before heading back out for the afternoon.

Looking south from Glastenbury Mountain fire tower. 

We got down to FS117 and then Kelley Stand Road when we got our first trail magic - ice cold root beers and KitKat bars from Ron!  His wife, Jersey, is a section hiker we met at the shelter last night.  The soda and candy gave us a good amount of energy to get up and over our big mountain for the day.  We began climbing up Stratton Mountain and it honestly wasn't as hard as we thought it looked on paper!  There were a few steep and rocky sections, but that is really the norm in Vermont.  We reached the top in less than an hour and a half and met the caretaker before climbing up the tower.  It was a clear but windy afternoon, but thankfully this tower had all the windows installed!  I took tons more photos and video and we then began our ascent down to the shelter.

A blaze in the middle of the trail, surrounded by ferns. 

The climb down Stratton was just as steep, rocky, and muddy, but we made it the 3.6 miles to the Stratton Pond Shelter pretty quickly as well.  After all is said and done, we hiked 19.3 miles on trail, plus the 0.2 miles to the shelter.  It's amazing to make these kinds of miles when you aren't an AT thru hiker with 1600 miles under your belt!  Tomorrow we are going to get up early and get into Manchester Center around lunchtime for our resupply.  

The plaque on top of Stratton Mountain. 

Day 17 - Finger Lakes Trail

It turns out it didn't end up raining all night.  Unfortunately, it DID start thunderstorming at 7 a.m. though.  We were already awake and getting our stuff put away when a wicked thunderstorm hit - lightening and thunder, the whole thing!  Thankfully, it did stop at 9 a.m., enough time for us to get moving.  Unfortunately for me, I woke up feeling not so great.  I'd been developing a bit of a scratchy throat since Saturday morning (our first zero) and now, on Tuesday, I woke up with a double earache and a wheeze.  We started walking and my cough got worse and the rain started again.  It rained for about 45 minutes, enough time for us to get wet on the downhill and then the crazy steep uphill that followed Babcock Hollow Road.  This part of the trail is so steep that FLTC crews installed ropes to help pull you up the hill.  Thankfully, we've hiked this section before and didn't need the ropes, even though it was raining.  

It's really steep, they aren't kidding! 

By the time we reached the top of the short and steep hill, the rain had stopped and mosquitoes came back out.  If you stopped walking, they would swarm.  We kept our heads down and we kept moving, although I was moving at a much slower pace than NoKey was.  We reached a seasonal road and we could take two trails - either the main FLT or a branch trail known as the Swedish Loop.  We opted for this trail instead of the main FLT since we had already done this part of the FLT.  The Swedish Loop was very beautiful and well-maintained - a mix of hardwood and spruce with a nice soft ground for walking.  The loop trail met back up with the FLT in only 1.5 miles and we were back on track to hit Daisy Hill Road.  We road walked a bit before heading back uphill and then down to the Jim Schug Rail Trail. 

When we reached the rail trail we were making great miles, pretty quick too.  There was a bench at the end where the FLT meets the road walk and we sat down for a bit.  By now I'm coughing and gasping, my throat hurts, and I just feel like crap.  The first lean-to of the day was only 6 miles out and I figured we could just stay there.  NoKey convinced me that I really needed to get out of the woods and rest.  We finished the road walk up to NY 38 and pulled out our "Hikers to Town" sign to hitch into Dryden.  We got picked up really fast with the new sign and got dropped off at a gas station/McDonald's at noon.  

Seeing this kind of trail will motivate you! 

We were trying to figure out what to do next - I didn't want to spend money on a B&B when home was only an hour away, but we had no way to get home.  No buses ran from this area to Syracuse until the following day and we still needed to hitch 10 miles down the road for that.  All this changed when a nice man named Dave came over to us.  He noticed the AT logo on NoKey's hat and started telling us about his daughter who thru hiked in 2007.  We got to chatting and discovered we had all lived in Maine before.  One thing lead to another and he said he could give us a ride to Cortland because he was on his way back to work there anyway. He had a Chinese Intern with him, Aman, who was headed back to Syracuse at 3:30.  Aman generously offered to drop us off at home if we could wait for him to get off work.  We agreed to wait and they dropped us off at a shopping plaza where I went to the drug store for medicine and NoKey went to Big Lots for junk food!

So now we're back at home...again.  We are so grateful to all the trail angels we met today who helped us get here and I'm feeling incredibly sad to be off trail. I feel like I'm throwing off our whole hike.  I know that hiking when you're sick is hard, but I still just want to be on trail.  

The rolling central NY hillsides. 

Day 16 - Finger Lakes Trail

We started this morning very early!  We got dropped off at Dunkin Donuts on exit 10 at about 6:40 this morning.  We got coffees and donuts and left at about 7:15 to walk down the old FLT through Blodgett Mills.  We decided to do this to avoid doing a double back on ourselves of about 5 miles.  We were making great time on the road walk and we're back in the woods quickly.  The trails were in good shape this morning, albeit muddy from all the recent rain.  We had beautiful blue skies this morning and made it to a part of the trail we were very familiar with at about 10:45.  We took a lunch break in the creek to keep the mosquitoes away and then took off for our big climb of the day up Virgil Mountain and Greek Peak.

The view from Virgil. 

We have hiked this entire section of map before, so it was really nice hiking familiar sections of trail.  Someone had very recently cut back all the briars and brambles so we were VERY happy!  The trail did get a little muddy toward the top, but all in all we made it up pretty quickly.  We then began another descent down to a road where we decided to take the high water bypass by walking on a winter snowmobile trail. This whole area recently got hit by a flash flood so we didn't really feel like tromping through washout, especially since we had already hiked this section of trail before.

I have no idea what this tape means. 

We reached the next road crossing and were less than a half mile from the shelter in the early afternoon. Since I had to go through and make us a rough schedule of where we would be staying, we called it an early day at 2 pm at the Foxfire Lean to.  We pretty much have to stay on the schedule due to lack of places to camp in some parts of the upcoming maps.  The weather is also calling from rain from 1 am to about 11 am tomorrow so the shelter seems like a better option than tenting.  So far we have only had two days on trail with dry feet... I'm hoping the rain breaks up before it gets here tonight!

I love seeing these logos on all the shelters!  This is the Foxfire Lean To

Days 14 & 15 - zero days at home

We came home yesterday night from McGraw, NY and we will be getting back on trail in Hoxie Gorge.  Since we were just going to be road walking to this point, that is why we made this decision.  So far, the minimal maintenance in the Catskills  and DEP lands combined with the wet (but beautifully maintained!) other portions of the eastern part of this trail have really gotten me in a funk. 

I am hoping the days off will recover my feet, which are starting to peel so badly I wonder how in the world there is any skin left!  I've never had foot problems on a hike before and I know it's probably just due to the perpetually wet conditions of this trail so far.  We are hoping that the summer weather kicks back in soon!  I haven't really hit my stride yet on this trail and it kind of has me a little nervous.  I think it's probably just due to the fact that my feet feet so miserable, but I'm really hoping to start enjoying myself more soon.  

So far we have spent 13 days on trail.  The breakdown is five nights in a tent, three nights in a shelter, three nights in private homes, and two nights in a motel.  For this reason, we have nicknamed this trail "The American Camino" or "Camino de American" haha!  We have been enjoying the road walks into these little towns, but it's going to start getting expensive if we keep going in to enjoy them!  We have already had to send back a box full of food due to not being behind schedule, but overindulging in towns to where we don't need our boxes.  This weekend home I plan to look more closely at our maps and plan our days loosely to make sure that our resupply plan suits us, especially since we have about a month left to hike on this trail. 

We have resealed our tent (AGAIN) to hopefully keep out every single drop of moisture.  It's waterproofed very VERY well right now, but due to the high amount of rain it's still getting some minor dripping at night.  Hopefully this third time is a charm and we won't need to do it again.  We also waterproofed the bottom of NoKey's pack and have washed and dried all our gear.  I'm enjoying the comforts of home, but I'm already wishing to be back on the trail.  That's the thing about a thru hike, it's all about the journey.  Some days on this trail haven't been all that enjoyable, but not every day will be.  I'm glad we were able to get home and get some rest so I wouldn't push myself to hard and just want to quit.  I was seriously ready to never come back to this trail before we hitched into McGraw yesterday afternoon.  Here's to hoping for better weather in the coming weeks!

Day 13 - Finger Lakes Trail

We were supposed to have rain from midnight until 8 a.m., but we woke up at sunrise to completely dry conditions, albeit overcast.  We were elated at the fact that it didn't rain!  We packed up and headed out early since we knew today if we pushed it we could go home!  We began some easy uphill walking to the top of the first hill, which at the top was just a mud pit.  We have deemed this mountaintop squishiness "mountain mush".  We slopped our way through the mud, attempting to stay dry but failing when the rocks under our feet would either completely sink or slide away and wash downstream.  The trails, however, were maintained as well as they could be.  On the other side at the bottom, we walked through a wet field where the water was so deep I sank in mud up past my calves.  The grass was nearly as high as my chest!

Just a LITTLE muddy!  

We began yet another uphill.  This hill made me lose my cool.  There was an old logging road switching back the whole way up, yet whoever built the trail decided to build it straight up the hill, meaning the entire trail pretty much had washed away due to all the rain.  You could see where people had slipped and slid, and even animal prints sliding and slipping, all the way up.  WHY NOT JUST USE THE OLD ROAD?!  Ugh.  Covered in mud at the top of the hill, the trail now WAS following the old logging road next to some private land and barbed wire fences.  This guy really doesn't want people on his land!  After some more mud, we came down into the Cheningo Day Use area - which doesn't look like it has been used yet this year.  

NoKey playing in a creek, washing off the mud and trying to escape the mosquitos!

From here, we chose to road walk up Cortland Two Road due to Cheningo Creek being so high and it recommending to do this for eastbound hikers if the creek is high.  We walked pretty steeply uphill before coming to the pond where the trail went back into the muddy woods.  We climbed another hill before finally coming down to Telephone Road.  From here, we could either climb a mountain described as "brambles get thicker", or we could get a ride into McGraw and go home.  Since the trail from here would have been a road walk nearly all the way to Hoxie Gorge, we chose to hitch.  I threw up my thumb and we surprisingly got a ride pretty quickly from a guy from Delaware.  He grew up in the area and said he used to hitch around here all the time.  We were incredibly grateful for the ride since the sun had come out and it was noon.  

Some dry-ish portions of trail today... it sure is pretty when everything is so green!

We stopped into Malarkey's Pub and Grub in McGraw and made a few phone calls to arrange our ride home to Syracuse.  Daryle and Jenny came and picked us up and brought us back home.  They really helped us out yet again and we are SO THANKFUL for them!  We really needed some time away from the trail and I'm ready to enjoy a weekend with (hopefully) dry feet. 

Day 12 - Finger Lakes Trail

We got another early start from Bucks Brook, mostly because we knew it was going to rain and we needed to get into DeRuyter for our resupply.  We had lots and lots of muddy walking this morning, through fields and private land, but it was mostly level without too much in the way of steep hills this morning.  Early on, we passed the Link Trail.  This is the trail system designed to connect the Adirondacks and the North Country Trail to the FLT.  It also runs up to the Erie Canal system.  We joked that we could just walk to the Erie Canal and walk home that way!  After crossing the first road, we began to get rained on again.  We didn't mind much as this now seems to be the norm for us!  We walked through more mud and slop for a while, up and down some rolling Central NY hills, before finally coming to the road we could walk to get into DeRuyter to pick up our resupply box. 

Where the Adirondacks can meet the FLT. 

We tried to hitch the entire time we were walking, but had absolutely no luck.  We were lucky, however, to get into DeRuyter 10 minutes before the post office closed for lunch!  At least we had that luck on our side!  We repacked our food bags and got out the new maps before we realized we honestly didn't even need the resupply because with all the road walking we would be doing the next few days we would be home in less than 2, instead of the full three we had planned.  Somehow, now NoKey had six days' worth of food! Yikes!

We stopped at Sal's Pizzeria on the way out of town - NoKey got two slices and I got a pepperoni roll.  Sal said we could recharge our phones while we ate, so we did.  We hiked back out of town, again trying to hitch back to no avail.  From here, we had a hot, but thankfully not sunny, road walk pretty much to near where we were camping for the night.  We passed an Elk Farm and had pretty much no traffic the entire time, so that was nice.  When we finally reached the top of Cuyler Hill Road to turn back into the woods, we took a break and checked our phones.  I had a message from the President of the FLTC apologizing for the rude behavior I experienced a week ago when I called the office for help on map 28.  I really appreciated him following up with me, even though I wasn't the person who called!  Donna, the kind woman who called me back when we were out of Downsville, had called and lodged a complaint on my behalf for being treated so poorly by the office worker on the phone.  He assured me they were taking steps to make sure this would never happen again and encouraged us to give him a call when we got into his part of the trail.  Thank you, Pat!

The beautiful rolling hills at the top of Cuyler Hill Road and Stony Brook Road. 

From here, we climbed up to our first 2000 foot hill we've seen in a while before coming downhill for a few miles into our campsite at Wiltsey Glen.  With all the rain, the whole area was pretty washed out again, but our campsite was pretty dry with the leaf and pine needle coverage.  We set up camp at 6 p.m. and were shocked that we had done nearly 25 miles for the day with all the road walking to our box in DeRuyter.  Even though road walking is hard on us, it does get you pretty far pretty quickly!  Tomorrow we are hoping to get into McGraw, NY and find a way to get home for the weekend.  I've lost a lot of motivation, probably due to the weather, and am ready to get home and take a break.  

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.