Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 96: August 13, 2009
Travel:
From: Rutland, VT
To: Wintturi Shelter, VT
Beginning: 12:15pm
Ending: 9:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 19.9
b) other – .2 to shelter tonight
c) AT Mile Marker – 1710.3 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Sunny and hot, beautiful all day.
PM: Got chilly after dark.
People: Tim, Ranon?, Two pounds, Angry girl from shelter.
Animals: Angry girl from shelter?
Money: $12 resupply, $2 laundry, $12 for new Leki tips, $2 bus ride to trail, $1725 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up feeling refreshed and well rested. Good sleep works wonders on the moral. We decided to walk down to the 24 hour Price Chopper for resupply since it was too early for the Cafe downstairs to be open and we wanted to make sure we left town with enough time to hike and not repeat last night. Our resupply was only to get us 46 miles to Hanover so it was fast and really cheap. We went back to the bunkhouse and dropped off the food and then collected our laundry so we could have that rolling during breakfast. We went downstairs and saw that breakfast was a spread of quinoa, feta cheese, diced tomato, and a cucumber and red onion salad. There was wheat bread and orange juice served as well. While Spoon and I ate, Tim came strolling into the Cafe looking for us. He brought us Snickers bars and asked if we needed a ride to the outfitters or anywhere else. He even suggested that if we wanted to skip the work for stay, he would settle our debts here and get us to the trailhead. Unfortunately our clothes still needed to dry and Ranon, the head honcho around here, sat down near us and started asking us about what kind or work we’d be interested in. Apparently a U-Haul van was coming that needed to be unloaded so we agreed to help out with that. I walked with Tim out to his truck and he wondered where we would be tomorrow and I told him our plans. He said excitedly that he was starting a day hike a few miles north, heading south, from where we would be starting in the morning and that we would cross paths. He wondered, “If I had an extra Gatorade and snacks do you think you could take that extra weight off of me?” I told him I imagined we could handle that task if we bumped into him. Pumped that we would get a 3rd day of magic from Tim, I went inside to tell Spoon the good news. I think I can blame the U-Haul for taking up our time and not allowing us to move our clothes over to the dryer because when we finally got our clothes drying we had more time to kill. We figured it would be a good idea to spend that time in the library up the street checking email and uploading pictures/journals. Rutland was the only town we actually had to go through the process of filling out paperwork to get a computer access card before being allowed to get on the computers. Once we had spent enough time on the computers for our clothes to be dryed 2-3 times over, we headed back to the Cafe. We collected our clothes, packed our packs, and searched or a way to get back to the trail. Lucky for us a bus leaves from behind the Cafe and has a stop where the AT crosses the highway, but it was scheduled to leave really soon. We still wanted to try and get some repairs done for our hiking poles as Spoon’s pole needed some kind or superglue or duct tape to keep the top half from sliding off the bottom half and I had broken both of my tips simultaneously yesterday and I was worried about damaging the poles further without replacements. The lady in the outfitter next door hooked us up quickly and we bolted for the bus.

PM: Two pounds was on the bus as well and she was returning to the trail further south than where we got off, so we never saw her again. We didn’t waste any time getting moving down the trail and a mile down the way was where the Long Trail and the AT split. The Long Trail heads north towards Canada and the AT heads east towards New Hampshire and the White Mountains. The trail took us down to Gifford Woods State Park where we stopped and had lunch. The trail continued around to the edge of Kent Pond. It was one of those beautiful days where you can see the sky reflected in the water and it did a great job in distracting me from keeping an eye on the trail. We skirted around the pond and then headed to a relocated section of trail that eliminated the road walk on Thundering Brook Road and River Road and added a wheelchair-accessible bridge over the Ottauqueechee River. Just after the bridge we began our climb up Quimby Mtn. where we ran into a cooler labled “Thru-hikers Only”. “Hey that’s us!”, I exclaimed, and ice cold trail magic was had by the both of us. It was days like this where the sun shined really bright and the views were breathtaking that really made Vermont stand out among some of the other states. The next couple of hours however took us over a rollercoaster-like series of mountains that wore me out. One part even had a ladder to climb down the sheer embankment. Before we knew it, it was getting dark and we were in for another late night. Thankfully the trail had gotten much easier so the nighthiking wasn’t a complete nightmare. However when we got to the shelter around 9pm and started to unpack we awoke and disturbed a demon from within. Yes, it is poor hiker etiquette to come into a campsite late and make noise, yet it is in even poorer taste to continually verbally attack and slander us even after we apologized and ceased to make noise. The butting of heads between this ball of anger and us really destroyed the mood that night and made me really not want to wake up and possibly have to deal with her the next morning. Sadly I don’t think any of us handled things the right way that night, so a lot of bad feelings were floating around.