Monthly Archives: August 2014

Day 117 – The Lookout to West Hartford, VT (mile 1733.3)

We hit the trail with beautiful weather this morning. However, it got pretty warm later and we had a day filled with PUDS – the derogatory hiker acronym meaning pointless ups and downs. That’s a bit harsh considering we had some nice views, but there was a load of minor elevation change all day and a lot of the little hills had no payoff.

Ok, I’ll stop whining, there was a lot of cool stuff today. We had a lot of fields and meadows that did have open views.

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Unnamed vista in eastern Vermont

And, of course, there was some cool small stuff.

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Grasshopper chilling

Then around lunch we found some most excellent trail magic.

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Beer. I crapped my pants.

Then after some more PUDS and a whole bunch of trees that were tapped for maple syrup, we came across the White River bridge into the tiny town of West Hartford. We were waved over to a house across the street, so we went over to say hi. The folks that live there, Randy and Linda, are super trail angels. They gave us and a couple other thru-hikers beer, soda, fudge, and made us burgers (I only had 5). They also let hikers crash in their garage loft, which has numerous beds and cots. Super cool of them. We’ve heard they make a mean breakfast for hikers, too, so we will see what tomorrow morning has in store. So all in all it was a tough hiking day, but we had lots of cool surprises along the way.

Tomorrow…Live Free Or Die.

Vital stats for Sunday, August 10th :
Miles hiked today – 19
Mood – awesome
Physical state – a little more tired than expected from the last couple of days, but pretty good
Smell – I think the devil lives in my armpits
Song stuck in my head – A New Anhedonia by Phosphorescent

Day 116 – VT 100 to The Lookout (mile 1714.3)

Today we got shuttled back to the trail by Packy and Tapey. We said farewell to them around 10:30am. Thanks again for everything, Mom and Dad. it was great seeing you guys! Can’t wait to see you in Maine!

The hiking today was slow going. We had a lot of elevation change plus full pack weight due to food and having our winter gear back. Quimby Mountain in particular was a steep and slow climb with no views. We did hike by a cool waterfall named Thundering Falls.

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Thundering Falls

We ended up near a cabin with a lookout tower on top.

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Cabin at "The Lookout"

The views were cool from up on top of the cabin. For the first time from the trail, we could see some of the rugged White Mountains of New Hampshire, including Mount Moosilake. It’s very faint in the picture, but it was visible to the naked eye.

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View from The Lookout

We camped on a ridge down below the cabin. We didn’t get quite as far as we originally wanted to today, but we decided not to push too hard since we have some of the most challenging terrain coming up very soon. Tomorrow we continue pushing east towards New Hampshire and that terrain.

Vital stats for Saturday, August 9th :
Miles hiked today – 14
Mood – good
Physical state – good
Smell – ain’t nobody got time for showers
Song stuck in my head – Aqueous Transmission by Incubus

Day 115 – Rutland, VT

Today was a nice, relaxing zero day spent with Mom and Dad Hnatow. We ran errands to get ready for the next few sections of trail, had lunch and dinner in downtown Rutland, and took the Gondola up (and down) the Killington Peak. It’s a bit quicker than hiking the gnarly trail.

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Unexpected group selfie

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Gondola ride and view on Killington

Major thanks to Mom and Dad Hnatow for visiting us up here and providing so much generosity as usual. Also, many thanks to the Heisers for the package, Aunt Linda for the goodies, and Uncle Mike for the light up Musikfest mug (awesome gesture)!

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Celebrating Musikfest without all the guns!

Day 114 – near Killington Peak to VT 100 (mile 1700.3)

We got a bit of late rain last night. Somewhere around 3 or 4am it unexpectedly started, so I went out and pulled our junk under the tarp. It must have been in the high 30’s, because it was super cold. In addition, we woke up and discovered these holes in our net tent (net insert that goes under the tarp to keep bugs from destroying us at night) and one of our food bags (the pink thing in the foreground).

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Curse you, rodents!

We descended off of Killington under very misty and cloudy conditions, so we had no views unfortunately. We hiked down and split from the Long Trail after ~105 miles. The AT now splits east towards New Hampshire and the Long Trail heads due north to the Canadian border.

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Off towards Maine we go

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Adios, Long Trail

We finished our nearo today by hiking through Gifford State Park. Mom and Dad Hnatow picked us up shortly after at the trailhead and the rest of the day was spent chilling with them. It was excellent.

Vital stats for Thursday, August 7th :
Milestone – 1700 miles down
Miles hiked today – 10.7
Mood – awesome
Physical state – resting up
Smell – Hiltonerific
Song stuck in my head – Pompeii by Bastille

Day 113 – mile 1668 to near Killington Peak (mile 1689.6)

We had some light rain overnight, so everything this morning was good and slick. The pine forest was cool looking though as the morning sun burnt off the misty clouds.

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Misty Vermont pine forest

Once the humidity blew out, we had a fantastic weather day. We had a big day with lots of climbing, so that was great. We climbed Bear Mountain (I think every state has a Bear Mountain), Clarendon Gorge (which had a pretty high suspension bridge that I forgot to photograph), Beacon Hill, and then big nasty old Killington last. The climb out of the Gorge had a view of the Rutland Airport, which did not appear very busy.

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Rutland airport. We ate lunch here and saw one tiny plane land.

The climb up to Killington was long and got really rocky and root-filled towards the top, so it was a bit slow going at times. We made camp not quite at the summit, but my GPS tells me we are at 3844 feet, so we are close. Google maps also tells me we are super close to some of the ski trails on Killington here. The wind is blowing and it’s really cold up here tonight. Brrrrr…it’s a good thing we are meeting the supply team of Packy and Tapey tomorrow with our winter gear. I can’t believe I need my winter stuff in August. Anyway, we are really looking forward to tomorrow, which is a nearo, and Friday, which is a zero day, with Ma and Pa Hnatow!

Vital stats for Wednesday, August 6th –
Milestone – less than 500 miles left to Katahdin
Miles hiked today – 21.6
Mood – good and cold!
Smell – the cold does help keep the stanky stank contained
Song stuck in my head – Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) by the Deftones

Day 112 – VT 11 & 30 to mile 1668

After some breakfast and a ride back to the trail from our awesome hosts, we got moving again under some sunny skies. Thanks again very much! We had a climb right from the trailhead up Bromley Mountain. The climb wasn’t too bad. The last quarter mile or so was literally right on a ski trail. This was pretty cool.

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Bromley Mountain with trail snaking up the ski slope

It was a green circle trail, so pretty easy skiing!

Next up we climbed Styles Peak. Who would name a peak after that dude from One Direction? So weird, he’s totally going to be in rehab or jail in like 2 weeks probably, if he’s not already. I mean, he’s an amazing musician and a personal hero of mine and all, but I just find it strange. Anyway, it was a little steep, but not overly long of a climb. It went up to another one of great pine forests that Vermont has up above roughly 3000 feet. They are really dense with pine and just great to hike through.
We had a brief scramble up some steep rock face to Baker Peak later in the afternoon.

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Rocky slope up to Baker Peak, Trippy hiding behind tree

Most of the rest of the day was normal Vermont trail without any big views. We had about 15 minutes of storms and rain in the evening, which made all the roots and rocks nice and slippery.

The last thing we passed was the very cool looking Little Rock Pond. Vermont has a lot of these neat mountain ponds. I think we’d call them lakes in PA for sure.

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North Shore of Little Rock Pond

We hiked about another mile from there and camped not far off the trail near a footbridge and stream.

Tomorrow the weather looks better and we are planning a pretty big mileage day. These are probably the last few days we are going to try to do 20 mile days on our thru-hike, so that’s pretty crazy that we are basically almost out of the “easy” stuff.

Vital stats for Tuesday, August 5th :
Miles hiked today – 20.8
Mood – good
Physical state – a little tired, but no major ish
Smell – kinda musty and moldy
Song stuck in my head – Dirty Blue Balloons by Failure

Day 111 – North Side of Stratton Mountain to VT 11 & 30 (mile 1647.2)

We slept in our stealth spot near the swamp last night. Easily our most stealthy spot. We woke up to some light rain, but it tapered off quickly. We broke camp and headed out towards Stratton Pond.

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Stratton Pond

Most of the hiking today was flat and easy. We were between some of the bigger mountains in Vermont. We headed up towards the first major road we’ve seen since VT 9 a couple days ago. We waited for a brief time in the parking lot there for our super gracious hosts to pick us up. Trippy’s contacts from the “real” world were our trail angels today. They picked us up, let us crash at their house, do our laundry, clean our stinky selves up, borrow their car to get supplies in town, made us fabulous dinner, gave us loads of great drinks, and were just wonderful hosts overall. We couldn’t have asked for a more fantastic nearo day. Thank you guys very much!

Tomorrow we say goodbye to our awesome hosts and are back on the trail as usual. We are pushing hard the next two days to get to Killington by Thursday.

Vital stats for Monday, August 4th :
Miles hiked today – 11.2
Mood – thankful for all the generosity
Physical state – resting up
Smell – clean!
Song stuck in my head – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth : 3 by Coheed and Cambria

Day 110 – Glastenbury Mountain to North side of Stratton Mountain (mile 1636)

I got up this cold morning and climbed back up the lookout tower and enjoyed some more spectacular morning views from Glastenbury. It was really a great place to camp, other than the annoyance of some people noisily setting up their tent near us at 9:30pm or so last night. That’s way past hiker midnight and is not cool, man.

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Epic morning sun and mist over Vermont

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Vermont morning sun

The rest of the day we hiked towards Stratton Mountain, the next big mountain on the trail. The trail getting there was typical Vermont, with lots of roots, rocks, and mud to hop, skip, jump, and slog through. The climb up to Stratton was longer than the climbs we’ve had of late, but wasn’t overly steep or challenging. We seem to have our climbing legs back in action, as we zipped past some high school kids and numerous other day and weekend hikers.

Stratton also had a lookout tower like Glastenbury. The views were nice, but a bit hazy. The tower was really high up and the wind was shaking it pretty hard.

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Stratton pond in the foreground

We hiked another 2.5 miles or so down the mountain and found a flat stealth spot back in the woods somewhat near a footbridge and stream.

Tomorrow is a nearo day in Manchester Center. Looking forward to an afternoon off before our push to Killington later in the week.

Vital stats for Sunday, August 3rd :
Milestone – less than a “Virginia” left to Katahdin (we use Virginia’s 550 miles as a barometer for a lot of longer distances). This also means we are 3/4 done.
Miles hiked today – 18.5
Mood – good
Physical state – normal
Smell – muddy muddy beast
Song stuck in my head – From Time by Drake

Day 109 – Stamford Stream to Glastenbury Mountain (mile 1617.5)

Today we started the hike with some more muddy trail under overcast skies. We hiked towards VT route 9 down a sharp descent and then promptly climbed back up from there. The weather stayed nice and clear and we saw it looks nice for the next few days here, so that was an instant morale boost. Then the trail got a bit nicer and less muddy on the north side of VT 9, which also helped boost the enthusiasm. The forests were nice and piney and much less of the swamp-like trails we had yesterday in northern Massachusetts and southern Vermont.

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Typical Vermont mud swamp trail

We didn’t have a lot of sights for most of the day, but it was pretty pleasant hiking and it went fast.

We hiked up to Glastenbury Mountain at the end of the day. The climb was easy. We saw a whole bunch of south bound thru-hikers today. Seeing them is a daily occurrence now. There are also a good number of people out here doing sections and weekend backpacking.

Anyway, Glastenbury is a really neat forest that reminds me of the high altitude forests in the Smokies. The air is crisp and invigorating and the trees are almost all pines. At the top of the mountain is a lookout tower with some excellent views. This is what I’ve been missing for a long while. It’s great to be back in this kind of scenery. It really makes for a nice payoff to the hard work.

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East views from Glastenbury

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West views from Glastenbury Mountain

We found a campsite about 100 yards from the tower. It’s pretty darn cold up here tonight since we are up near 4000 feet.

Vital stats for Saturday, August 2nd :
Miles hiked today – 16.7
Mood – awesome, still missing Musikfest a bit, but the nice hiking, great views, and good weather help immensely
Physical state – good
Smell – the cold, crisp air helps…a little
Song stuck in my head – 2 Chairs & 1 Tree by Brother

Day 108 – Mt. Greylock to Stamford Stream (mile 1600.8)

We headed out of the Bascom Lodge after some complimentary coffee and muffins. This was a nice place to stay. The bunk rooms were clean and we ended up being the only ones in the one we were in.

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Bascom Lodge on top of Mt. Greylock

We had a steep descent off of Greylock and then crossed the Hoosic River. We then hiked up into the Green Mountains of Vermont. The AT and the Long Trail of Vermont run concurrent for around the next 100 miles.

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Vermont! Yeaaaaa! Sweaty!

Super excited to be here in Vermont. I’ve asked every former thru-hiker we’ve met what their favorite section or state was and every one of them answered with either Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine, so it’s really cool to be in this section of the AT finally.

The rest of the hiking day was uneventful. The trail in Vermont was pretty muddy as expected, but not waterlogged like Massachusetts was after the storms. The trail was gnarly, with a lot of rocks and roots, too. No worries though. There was about a 40% chance of storms all day, but it stayed nice and we avoided all of them.

We found a little flat spot just a few feet off the trail near this stream. It’s a pretty wet area. Tomorrow we keep pushing forward through the mud. The next planned stop is Manchester Center.

Vital stats for Friday, August 1st :
Milestones – less than 600 miles left to Katahdin, over 1600 miles hiked, and now in Vermont (11 states down, 3 to go)
Miles hiked today – 18.4
Mood – excited to be in Vermont, but bummed to be missing Musikfest back home in Bethlehem for the first time in forever. Can someone please chug a mug of beer for me?
Physical state – slightly muddy, but not bad
Smell – I’d like to think it hasn’t been that bad because it hasn’t been all that hot, but I probably smell like a trash can filled with raw sewage that’s on fire with rotted meat tied around it
Song stuck in my head – Welcome To The Jungle by Guns n Roses