After breakfast at the Greek restaurant / diner in town, we checked out of the Autumn Breeze Motel (nice place) and called the Shuttle Connections lady again and got shuttled back to the trail around 9:45am. It was overcast mostly today, but the temperature stayed nice and cool for hiking. We ascended up to the Kinsman Ridge, which was rocky and slow hiking, but not too bad. We spent a chunk of the time remaining in the morning navigating through that and then we started the big climb of the day up to the Kinsman Mountains. We had heard that the ascent up to South Kinsman was a real tough rock scramble and indeed it was.

Trippy navigating up the rocks

The last mile was very slow going. We popped out above the tree line for a short while though once we hit the summit. The views were outstanding.

View from South Kinsman

Cairn marking trail in foreground with White Mountains looming in the background

More views off South Kinsman

Franconia Ridge (we climb that tomorrow)

It was really cool to have these great views after the hard work. We then crossed over to the North Kinsman summit and then descended. The descent was very rocky and slow, also. We made our way down and found a small established campsite maybe a 1/2 mile from Lonesome Lake and it’s hut. They have these rustic huts up here in the Whites that are available for people to rent. They are apparently popular with many day hikers, but are a bit pricey ($125 per person) for having no showers and “composting” toilets. I can not take a shower for free out here!

We are scaling our planned daily miles back here in the Whites to between 13-15ish because it’s so challenging. Today we were a little short due to the late start, but it seems like finding stealth camping here is going to be tough, so we figured we shouldn’t pass up a nice flat spot.

Vital stats for Saturday, August 16th :
Milestone – 1800 miles in the books
Miles hiked today – 12.7
Mood – good
Physical state – feeling it in the knees and legs a bit more after the tough descents
Smell – aight, for now
Song stuck in my head – Today by The Smashing Pumpkins

We had a luxurious zero day of doing almost nothing. It was amazing. We had some breakfast at the Woodstock Inn with copious amounts of supposedly local maple syrup, did laundry at the nearby laundromat, drank some beer and wine, watched a lot of TV, and had a huge amount of Chinese food for dinner. It was pretty ideal for a zero.

Tomorrow we head back to the White Mountains and have the wicked South Kinsman Mountain to tackle. The weather forecast looks good, so we are stoked to get back out there.

We got up this morning after an action packed night of old dudes farting and snoring like buzz saws. Ahh hostels…will not miss them at all I think. The power was still out there from last night, so we resorted to hiker gruel for breakfast. We headed out around 8am and almost immediately started the climb up Moosilauke. The ascent was big and steep, but not as bad as I thought it would be. It was rocky and rooty, but didn’t require any scrambles or any major changes to our pace. It was wet and slick though and we climbed up in a cloud of mist. We eventually hit the tree line, where the trees are 8 feet tall or shorter or nonexistent, and it was misty and mysterious looking up on top of this giant.

Climbing above the tree line on Moosilauke

The trees disappeared up on the summit. They use rock cairns up here above tree line to mark the trail. It gave it a cool look in the mist.

Cairn marking the trail on top of Moosilauke, Trippy hiking along it

Trail following the misty cairns

We hit the actual summit and had no views unfortunately.

Where are we?

Kind of a bummer, but we were psyched to be on top of this monster nonetheless.

We headed down quickly because the wind was insane up there. It was quite cold and damp. The descent started slowly enough and it actually started to clear up as we went down a bit on the north side.

View from the Beaver Brook Shelter at lunch

After the shelter, the descent got crazy. It was super steep, like no other climb down we have had. We moved at only about 1.5 mph at best because of all the slick rocks. It was really beautiful though, as much of it went down along a gushing waterfall.

Waterfall on north side of Moosilauke

Wood blocks fastened to the rock helped along some of the brutal descent

We eventually climbed down many slick and dangerous rocks and got to Kinsman Notch around 2pm, which was a parking lot and a small mountain highway. We needed to get into North Woodstock to grab a maildrop at the post office. We tried to hitch for a bit, but had no luck, probably because I was creeping peeps out. Another thru-hiker named Billy Goat came down and we all called a shuttle service to get to town 5 miles away. We got to town and promptly decided to take a zero day here tomorrow. Both of us are feeling a bit fatigued and we’d like to rest a bit more before tackling more of the challenges ahead. North Woodstock seems like a tourist town with a lot of cool things to check out. I approve of the microbrewery in town, named the Woodstock Inn.

Vital stats for Thursday, August 14th :
Miles hiked today – 9.3
Mood – psyched to have done Moosilauke (and it wasn’t that bad)
Physical state – good
Smell – New England fresh
Song stuck in my head – Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

We set the alarm for 5am today to try to get on the trail and up over Mount Cube before the worst of the storms. It started to drizzle around 4:40am, so we didn’t quite beat all the rain. We climbed up Cube, which was rocky and very exposed. The wind was gusting pretty heavily by this time. We had a slow and wet descent down off of the mountain. The rain was off and on throughout most of the morning, but the wind kept blowing hard. We trudged through it. The trail was pretty deserted for obvious reasons. By lunch, it was pouring, blowing everywhere, and getting very cold. We slogged through the remaining 5 miles or so and road walked about a half mile to the hostel. It was pretty full of hikers staying dry, but we managed to get a bunk and dry out for a bit. The wind and storms only got worse, as two nearby huge tree limbs came down while we hung out in the hostel. One of them, the size of most trees, absolutely crushed a large compost bin the hostel owner had built himself. Luckily, no one was hurt. It was nice to not be out during some of this intense storm, as it was not fun hiking through it.

On the positive side, we got the cards and care package from Will and the Lutron gang. That totally made a crappy day awesome. Many many thanks guys. Roughly half the food was eaten in minutes.

The storms have blown out, so tomorrow we head over the massive Mount Moosilauke, our official entry to the White Mountains. Other than Katahdin itself, this is the one climb that I’ve been dreaming about since we started this crazy trip. It’s over 4 miles up to the summit and nearly 4500 feet of elevation gain.

We are now heading into the final and by far most difficult stretch of the trail with the Whites and western Maine coming up in the next few weeks.

Vital stats for Wednesday, August 13th :
Milestone – less than 400 miles left to Katahdin
Miles hiked today – 14.5
Mood – thankful for the goodies and to be dry, psyched for the Whites
Smell – hostel clean
Song stuck in my head – Salt by Bad Suns

After an uneventful night, we headed up Moose Mountain first thing in the morning. We hit the south peak and chatted with a guy who told us he lives on a nearby road. He had a cute little golden retriever puppy with him. It turned out he and his son are both PSU alum. WE ARE!

Morning view from Moose Mountain South peak

We then crossed over to the north peak, which had no view, then descended down and immediately began the next ascent up to Holt’s Ledge. This was a steep chute up to a viewpoint right on the side of a sheer cliff.

After that little dirt patch, it's a crazy high cliff

We hiked along the side of the cliff for a bit, then descended down again. After lunch, we started the big climb of the day, up to Smarts Mountain. We are definitely back in challenging climbing territory. Smarts was a beast, the first half was loaded with steep granite rock climbs (you just kind of hope your shoes are gripping it) and the second half was just a monstrously steep 3/4 mile hill up to the peak.

Perspective is hard to see here, but this is a really steep granite "trail"

The bummer was that the fire tower with the views at the top was closed for repairs. I was tempted to sneak up, but there was some crap about a $5000 fine. Then we descended down Smarts, which was over 4 miles of descent and was much easier trail than the ascent side.

We have been keeping an eye on the weather for tomorrow, which looks atrocious. They are calling for heavy storms and flooding all day. Yeaaaaa what a great day to hit the Whites! We decided to push farther than planned today at least part of the way up the last Mountain before the Whites, Mount Cube, in order to slightly minimize our stormy hike to Glen Cliff tomorrow. We found a flat spot and stealth camped roughly 1/4 past the Hexacuba Shelter. It was a very challenging day to hike 20 miles. Tomorrow we will have around 14 miles to hit the Hikers Welcome hostel in Glen Cliff, where we plan to stay for the afternoon and night due to the predicted weather.

Vital stats for Tuesday, August 12th :
Miles hiked today – 20.4 (probably our last 20!!)
Mood – good, other than the annoyance of the predicted crapola weather tomorrow
Smell – worse than the puppy breath from little puppy we saw this morning
Song stuck in my head – Lost by Frank Ocean

Last night we stayed in Randy and Linda’s garage loft thing with a couple of other thru-hikers, including a SOBO (South bounder) named Roadrunner and a NOBO couple named Aquaman and Tricks, who we haven’t seen since really early in Virginia. It was cool to hang out with people that we haven’t seen for over 1000 miles. It was also cool to get some firsthand info about the challenges we have coming up in the Whites and Maine from Roadrunner.

Anyway, as rumored, Linda made everyone bacon, eggs, and coffee. They didn’t ask for anything in return, but could easily have charged for everything they gave us. Aquaman, Tricks, and us ended up giving them a few bucks to help pay for some of the hiker food since they were so generous to us.

We left town around 8:30 or so and headed out. I was amused by this road name near West Hartford.

Podunk Road? Lol wtf really?

We did a good bit of road walking today. First we went through Norwich, VT, which looked like a nice little town. Then we crossed the Connecticut River and headed into New Hampshire.

Connecticut River

New Hampshire, baby!

The trail went right down the main street by Dartmouth in Hanover, NH. It was packed with people getting lunch, milling around, smelling like they showered this week, wearing nice clothes, that sort of thing. We got some looks for sure. We grabbed lunch at a mediocre burrito place called Boloco, which was like a cruddy version of a dumpy Chipotle. We then stopped at the food co-op grocery store on the way out of town and got a few minor resupplies for the next couple of days. It would have been tempting to stay had there been a couple cheaper places in town, but that didn’t seem to be the case, so we pushed on. We had a few steep climbs once we got off the road, but the trail was a little easier overall than yesterday. No real views unfortunately, but I predict both the easier trails and the lack of views will end as of tomorrow and go pretty much until we are done with this crazy journey.

We camped in an established spot right next to the Mink Brook at the base of Moose Mountain.

Vital stats for Monday, August 11th :
Milestone – done with Vermont, now in New Hampshire (state 13 of 14!)
Miles hiked today – 18.4
Mood – great to be in NH, getting psyched for the White Mountains
Smell – criminal
Song stuck in my head – It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy

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.

Unnamed vista in eastern Vermont

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

Grasshopper chilling

Then around lunch we found some most excellent trail magic.

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

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.

Thundering Falls

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

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.

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

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.

Unexpected group selfie

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)!

Celebrating Musikfest without all the guns!

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).

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.

Off towards Maine we go

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