From Hazard’s notes:
Day 94: August 11, 2009
Travel:
From: Bromley Shelter, VT
To: Greenwall Shelter, VT
Beginning: 8:40am
Ending: 7:45pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 22.6
b) other – .3 to shelter tonight
c) AT Mile Marker – 1665.2 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Little spurts of rain here and there. Misty and wet at the top of Bromley Mtn. Then the sun came out after we dropped some elevation.
PM: Sunny and cloudy skies all day. Warm. Around 5:30pm a flash thunderstorm soaked us and then the sun was out right afterwards.
People: Bugman & Two Pounds, Yukon Rasputin, Hot Sauce and Ishmael, Jane from Maine.
Animals: Moose tracks! But no moose.
Money: $0, $1697 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up to a misty morning, ate, then packed up our still moist gear. Since the shelter was perched on the side of the mountain we still needed to get over the summit. As we got near the summit, the trail took us onto a ski slope (there was no snow) and we hiked up this ski slope to the summit of Bromley Mtn. At the top was a lodge, observation tower and high speed ski lift that wasn’t in operation of course. Since the weather was still nasty we didn’t spend any time wondering how odd it was to be on top of a ski mountain in the summer. We started heading down as a girl named Two Pounds was taking her leave as well. We just had to ask how she got the name and the story goes that she once carried two pounds of cheese on the trail, which is pretty crazy by hiker standards. After tackling Bromley we had to go up Styles Peak and Peru Peak. Although the sun came out Spoon was feeling pretty down and out. His motivation for hiking was lacking and at the top of Peru Peak Spoon requested a rest break and we pulled out snacks and hydrated. After laying in the sun for a while we made our way down to the shelter which for a pay site wasn’t very special. We decided to just have lunch there while we had access to a picnic table.
PM: While eating we realized that we recognized two of the hikers relaxing in the shelter. It was none other than Kendra and Wes who we met on day 3 on Blood Mountain and are now Hot Sauce and Ishmael and thru-hiking SOBO just like they said 91 days ago! It was cool to hang out with them and see how they were doing as thru-hikers almost 2 months into their hike. We wished them luck on their hike and continued on with our sunny day. Baker Peak was a highlight as we got to climb up a bald rock face to the summit and got fantastic views at the top. We thought the flawless afternoon weather would last but around 5:30pm a flash thunderstorm soaked us for a good 20 minutes and then the sun came back out like nothing happened. As evening fell we passed quite an unusual sight that I can only describe as a rock cairn garden. I imagine hikers over the years have come by and made their contributions to the area. There were precariously stacked rocks everywhere, piles that seemed to defy gravity, and even a rock arch. It was really very impressive. When we rolled into camp, there were already a lot of people there that had set up a tarp over the picnic table and already started a fire. We met Jane from Maine who was finishing her week long hike with her family. She has been gradually hiking the trail one section at a time and was going home tomorrow. That meant lots of food that they didn’t need to carry out with them. She fixed us hot chocolate, gave us snacks and other food to put into our dinner, and generally took care of us. It was like having your mom out on the trail. After getting a full belly and drying out our sweat soaked clothes next to the fire, it was time for sleep.
