Aug 5

Woke up this morning freezing, my watch read 52 deg. Sunshine and I put our heads together last night to stay as warm as possible,  we took one of the quilts and used it as an underquilt for her hammock while we shared the other quilt inside the hammock. Our camp was on the side of Bromley mtn. about .75 miles on the decent, Really it wasn't a camp at all, just two trees the right distance apart on a steep grade. With it getting dark fast and us begining to get cold we decided that would be home for the night. During the night the wind picked up dramatically, and blew right through our "camp" with a cold furry.

Finally sunshine and I climbed out of the hammock,  about 10:30am and in a rush to start hiking to stay warm. Leaving camp at 11:15 we were on a mission.  20 miles by dark. It was a long shot, usually when we do a 20 we are up early, but not this day. Within the first two miles rusty and toast came walking up...we had stopped for some "brown blazing". (Use your imagination you will figure it out )
After conversing with our friends about extremly serious topics we headed north again. A few more miles went by when we found a bag of linguine noodles by a sign, being that we are always hungry the noodles went north too, a feast of linguine would be our dinner tonight.

   The trail was beautiful,  Baxter peak was a great climb, with amazing views. While climbing the steep rocks up Baxter I was in awe of everything it was perfect. Once we hit the summit the trail turned immediately in a dense spruce fur forest that smelled of Christmas.  After decending Baxter we came to the Shelter that marked 15 miles for the day and it was barely 4pm. We took a quick break loaded up on calories and headed for our last climb for the day. On the ridge line it was beautiful again, another dense pine forest littered with quartz rock. We were approaching the white rocks overlook, before the trail head to the overlook we came across a ton of prayer rocks. It was awesome to see what a bunch of hikers had built. Dark was in our near future,  so we headed the .7 to the Green wall shelter.  The shelter and tent area was all ours for the night. Sunshine set up the hammock as we did the night before, while I made what I like to call an instafire. One second there is no fire and the next there is. We cooked delicious linguine with olive oil and oregano then headef to bed for another big day tomorrow.

Aug. 3 Stratton Mtn.

Last night was a ruff one. The temperature dropped when a front moved through at about 2am, we woke up to rain and wind. Around 6am its was oh so cold and still raining so instead of getting an early start we slept in till 9:30am. Climbing out of my quilt was a mental challenge I hate being cold. Once up and moving we broke down camp and hung the rain gear to dry in the wind. Sunshine and I left camp at 11:15 still hoping to pound out 20 miles. The two of us flew up the almost 2000 ft. climb 5.7 miles or so in two hours, passing everybody.  At the summit was tourist central...they had a nice walk from their cars about .5 away.
There was a line to climb the fire tower, so we ate lunch while the civilians got their payoffs.  Once most the people cleared out sunshine and I were about to climb up when Toast hit the summit so I told her to cut line and bring her thru hiker butt up the tower with us. Above the tree line it was extremely windy going up the 70ft fire tower.  Inside we looked at what we had climbed and what is too come, seconds later Rusty, toast hiking partner popped his head in. We all laughed at toast rant about tourist and took pics then headed down.

Sunshine and I said bye to our hiker friends and headed north, Stratton mountain is beautiful and reminded me of Clingmans dome. We made it 3 miles in just under an hour, stopped for a few min. and decided we would go 4.9 before the next break. I took off at a fast pace, about 4 mph with sunshine right on my heels. After an hour at that pace we slowed it back down to 3mph and made it the 4.9 in 1 hour 20 min. hehehe. We took another break got water and moved on. 3 miles away was Spruce Peak shelter that we didn't plan on staying at, but one we got there we quickly changed our minds. The shelter has a door and swinging windows which is awesome but to top that a wood burning stove. After being cold last night this is just what we needed.  Also at the shelter tent sites is a summer camp group consisting of 7-10 yr olds and two counselors.  The kids were all very well behaved and the counselers were really cool and generous. They fed us mac-n-cheese...tons of it we are stuffed. Sunshine and I used some good old-fashioned team work and collected enough wood to keep this toasty fire going all night. I think I could live here, its not much different then my old house in Vonore lol minus the electricity and fridge.

Tomorrow we walk on...
Good day sir.

Aug. 2nd

I awoke to the hikers in the shelter making noise early in the morning.  Not wanting to get up I laid In the tent contemplating the day and where sunshine was. Finally I got motivated and put my shoes on. The rainfly was soaked from the downpour of rain but it was too humid to try to dry it out so I packed it anyhow.  As I was about to leave sunshine came walking into camp. She had stopped about three miles back and stealth camped, we made coffee and began the final accent to the summit and fire tower. Once we had climbed the tower and took pictures we set off again. The trail was rough there is a lot of mud, roots and "rocks and sticks and twigs". All of those combined slowed us down more than we expected.  Arriving at Kid gore shelter Sunshine and I hung up the rain gear to dry while we ate lunch. Kid gore shelter has a beautiful view from the front, so we had lunch with a view. It made my bagel with cheese drenched in olive oil and oregano sandwich priceless.

Climbing out of the gap where the shelter was was slow moving. Our next goal was the stoney spring shelter which also took us forever to get to. We had second lunch and talked with some Sobo's and LT hikers along with a Family of Nobo's sectioning half the trail. The youngest of the family is 7 his name is HI Five and two daughters one of which has down syndrome she is named tutu.

With Stratton mountain in our near future and my foot hurting, we decided to camp at the base of the mountain rather than climb the 5+ miles over the summit to stelth camp. Camp tonight is directly next to a nice little brook on soft pine needles. The family of Nobo's are camped on the other side. Its 9 pm hiker midnight so I'm calling it a day. Goodnight

Aug. 1st 5 months on trail.

Eight AM Sunshine and I hit the trail headed for Bennington VT to pick up our packages. It was a 2.2 miles hike mostly steep down hill followed by a 5 mile hitch into town.  A man who was 88 was in the near by parking lot and was just thrilled to take us to the post office (we were not so thrilled with his driving). The two packages I picked up were my food drop (thanks mom and dad) and the replacement quilt from Jacks R Better. We transfered our food from the boxes to our food bags and headed to eat some breakfast. Breakfast turned out to be lunch followed by huge free ice creams with all the fixins. Our last stop was Right Aid for more Alieve to keep the pains down. While in Right Aid the rain started coming down,  needless to say we just went on with our day. After walking about a mile a "wild woman" picked us up and she was pretty funny. I had spotted Big Yankee another nobo hiker in the back seat of a car that passed, he had also hitched to and from town. Once back on trail we had quite a climb ahead of us. A continuous climb from 1366ft to 3573ft. in about 10 miles. On the first and most steep climb the rain began to get harder, we made it to the first shelter just 1.6 from the road where big yankee, twigs and lucky were also hiding from the cold rain along with a couple other hikers. Sunshine and I sat there for about 1.5 hours while the rain poured down.  Even though we were wasting time we were having a blast telling jokes and riddles and just being well hiker trash. I believe most of us have lost our minds.
Finally we got motivated and set out to do 8.5 miles up to the next shelter (Goddard shelter) I lost sunshine about two miles in to the climb, I was kinda cold so I didn't want to mess around with breaks. I made it to the shelter in 2.5 hours without stopping.  On the way up the fog got thicker along with the forest, It was kinda spooky especially when huge gust of wind would rattle the trees. The trail is beautiful up on the bigger mountains I'm so glad to be above 3000ft. although tonight may get a bit chilly. The shelter here is full of people probably LT Hikers I don't know I just peaked in then set up my tent. It is 9:02 and I'm sitting in my tent listening to the rain and wind pounding against the rain fly, sunshine is still not here and I am beginning to worry about her, the rain is steady and the temp is dropping I hope she gets here soon.

Loving Vermont!

July 31 Welcome to Vermont and the long trail.

After our last breakfast with Tom and saying bye to new hiker friends, we climbed in the car for the 30 min. drive to North Adams where we thanked Tom said goodbye and started north again.

Right off the bat we had a 1000+ ft. climb, and we killed it...except for the stop at the creek running beside the trail where sunshine and I both washed our hair and faces. (Toms shower is leaking or we would have showered there)
We made it to the state line of Vermont as well as the start of the 105 mile section of The Long Trail that the AT shares. Apparently The Long Trail attracts a lot of hikers either for the weekend a few nights  or a thru hike that is 273 miles to Canada.
Either way the trail is packed and Its seems to me that most of the LT hikers are not very experienced and kindly annoying, or maybe we feel they are intruding on our "home" so there is a small amount of prejudice in us. No matter we will still be respectful of the trail and the people on it.

The day was pretty good though, after the first 1000ft. climb the terrain leveled out which caused mud pits to form. Vermont is known for being muddy and it didn't take long to see why. We then climbed another 1000ft and took a break on top. Most of the day was spent above 2000ft. which is nice, less bugs and cooler temps. make the days enjoyable.  Sunshine and I reached Congdon shelter and realized it was taken over by LT hikers. Lucky a NOBO hiker from Ireland and a SOBO named spits were there already,  we talked to them and cooked food then decided to move on and find a stealth site to camp. 2.4 miles north we found a little spot by the last creek before Bennington  VT where we will hitch into in the morning for resupply.  At this moment I'm laying in my tent listening to some creature make strange dying like noises. Its kind of annoying and unnerving at the same time.

(Sunshine is a real OG)

July 30

Oh what a day. Sunshine and I woke up at 730 in Tom lovardi's basement on a king size bed and boy did I sleep good. Tom had coffee, bagels with cream cheese, english muffins and donuts for breakfast free of charge. I'm must say he is an extraordinary man with a huge heart and the kindess soul, he is the ultimate trail Angel and for that we love him.

After waiting on the thru crew to get their shit together Sunshine and I finally got to North Adams Massachusetts to start our 23 mile "slack pack" over Mt. Greylock Sobo style. We began the long climb up the southern side of the mountain.  The accent was appox. 2000ft. in 5 miles. Sunshine and I made it to the summit in 3 hours. On the summit 3450ft. it was chilly with a constant breeze. Fun size, waffles, and bottlecap were also at the summit they caught me doing a push-up on the monument in honor of our new friend pink leprechaun.  The Five of us went down to the lodge for lunch and stunk up the place with our trail merc. Once we had eattin sunshine and I began the long decent down the northern side of Greylock. During the decent we ran into Nomad and his daughter doin a day hike up the mountain,  we talked laughed and said goodbye for the final time before he end his 4 month adventure as a trail Angel.
Later in the day a porcupine was running down the trail in front of us it was really cool and really pretty funny, after about .1 miles he took off into the woods. As dusk was approching we saw another porcupine, but he just climbed a tree and stared at us while we took pictures and talked to him or her. Finally we came off the trail back in Dalton Mass. and headed for Toms house, at this point it was about 8pm and we were beat. Tom's backyard looks like a tent city, there are 11 tents 3 people sleeping on the porch and a few more upstairs. I am now back in the kingsize bed ready to sleep like a rock, tomorrow we will cross into Vermont and have less than 600 miles to go.

Random Pictures

Eatting blueberries
Massachusetts boardwalk
Motor Boat Blazing
Making sandwiches in the hotel during laundry time. No pants dance!