Crocs at Seth Warner Shelter, Vermont 1599.1 Miles

July 23 Salisbury  1499 miles
I left the three weekend hikers sleeping at the shelter at about 6:00. I wanted to get into Salisbury and it was over twenty miles away. Although it looked like rain last night, today should be a nice warm day. 
I walked along a rumbling river for a mile or two watching the insects come out in the morning sun.
I walked through about 7 miles of  PUD's, lots of swampy fields with footbridges and then a long climb up Mtn Prospect. 
Then I took a road that belonged to the old AT, past the Audubon Swamp and then got attacked for three miles by a swarm of hundreds of nats and mosquitoes. 
I stopped and sprayed Off repellent over my head until it ran dry. 
It did no good; they continued to follow me down the road.
Then I grabbed my shorts hanging out to dry at the back of my pack and began swatting to either side of my face. It worked. I continued in this vein a few more miles out of the swampy areas, flagellating my shoulders like some odd hiking sinner.
Then I came to a shady apple tree along the road and filled my belly with fruit. 
Then I walked toward Salisbury and was picked up by some former hikers who took me into town.
Salisbury is a small town but it is an expensive one. I found a hostel for forty dollars a night. The floors were angled every which way, there were a number of cats jumping about the house, and there were piles of newspaper in the fireplace. The shower had a curtain wrapped around a tub and water leaked onto the floor. I pointed this out to Victoria and she thought calling the plumber might help.
I was tired so I would stay two days. The bed was comfortable.  

July 24 Salisbury  CT     1499 Miles
I zeroed, read my paperback novel, slept some, and ate some nice pot roast, my favorite comfort food, from the local high end grocer. 
I picked up a package of goodies from the post office.
I talked with a few section hikers about some upcoming states and hostels to check out. 

July 25  Hemlock Shelter MA   1512 Miles
Left around two o'clock after blogging some. Victoria is eccentric but she was nice enough to take me the two miles up to the trailhead. 
I passed the 1500 mile mark. Just about 700 milesto go! 
I make a 600 foot climb over a mile up Bear Mountain and then came down and crossed from Conneticut to Massachusets. Then another long climb up Mt. Race. 
I thought Mt. Race was Mt. Everett, the mountain I had been warned about, and thought that the climb wasn't too bad and so I  took my time coming down it. But about 7PM I realized that I hadn't hit the 1000 foot over one mile climb up Everett. 

When I did it was eight o'clock PM and the sun was low. I came to a long steep hill that went straight up, with wood blocks bolted into the rock face. I'm glad I didn't have poles because I had to crawl up the mountain, keeping my pack as tight to my back as I could make it. 
By the time I reached the top it was almost 9 PM and I was in the dark, looking at the lights of a town come up in the distance. I took out my headlight and prayed to God that the ascent down the mountain was not as strenuous as it was going up.
I got lucky and went down the mountain through a winding trail of the usual rocks and roots. Had to be careful though that I didn't trip or slide off a rock. 
About forty-five minutes later I crossed a gravel road and went down further into the woods and into a clearing. Twenty minutes later I found the shelter and got into my bag without awaking anyone that I know of. 
Then I saw another headlight come in as I settled into my bag. The hiker climbed up into the rafter platform and got in his bag. 
I wasn't the only one doing some night hiking. 
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July 26 Community Center, Great Barringto, MA  1539 miles
The hiker who had come in the night before left very early. He was a German in his twenties and he told me he was doing thirty to thirty-five mile days and hoping to finish in August. 
My feet and knees ache just thinking about that. 

It had rained in the morning and the rocks were slippery today but I planned to go into town after my long day yesterday. Along the way I heard a voice call out ahead of meto watch out for the rocks because he had slid and fell a couple of times.
I said I would go around them into the bushes and then he said "Crocs?" 
It was Dundee. It was good to see the sensitive and matter-of-fact guy again. He hadn't seen Lil' Cub in a week or so, apparently Cub had blister problems. 
Then he told me he was off the trail today. His daughter was graduating and he was going to Arkansas to meet her. I could tell he regretted leaving the Trail. He is one of those who truly enjoys hiking. He done more than a few hundred miles though, a section hiker, and he was glad that he had accomplished what he had. 
Perhaps we would meet up again in Austin, TX. 
We came to a highway and I hitched into town where a lady in a parking lot asked me if I needed a ride to the Community Center. I was thinking of staying at the cheap Eastern Retreat place that I saw in the guide but she said this was a great place.
The community center had a swimming pool, sauna, showers and a place to eat. I put my pack in a locker and swam and then walked to a local optician and had my glasses adjusted, then to the Travel-lodge to use their washer/dryer, then to a goodwill store to buy a long sleeve shirt (been getting chilly early mornings) for three bucks, then to Price Chopper for dinner and resupply.
I went back to the center and feasted out on a roast chicken and cole slaw. Then, around nightfall, I set up my tent with a few others in a field near the Center. 


July 27 East Mtn Retreat Center   1529 miles
I felt I needed to zero and ate some blueberry muffins at the Center, took another shower, then went to the library and blogged. 
Then I called a shuttle driver who took me up to this dirt road and dropped my off. He didn't want his czr going over the rutty road. a mile or so up the road he said. 
I got up to the top of hill with a pretty view of some hills and a couple of older houses. A sign at the first house directed me to go to the back of the second house. I went in and claimed a mattress on the floor out of three of them.
I met Stitches who was napping in one of them and later that night I met Trail Mix, another young twenty-something and we ate pizza and played chess. 
I noted all the religious books on the shelves and picked a book out called Non-Violence. Might be a good antidote to Jack Reacher and the Westerns that I had been reading. 
The lady of the house, eighty years old and spirited still, came down and said I could have the book and that people came to the Retreat to meditate and find peace. She liked hikers. They expected so little. She asked for twenty dollars and said she expected that I would be quiet and retire early.
Falling to sleep on my mattress that night I heard the elderly lady loudly shouting and walking on the floor above me for almost an hour, "No, no, no! Did you hear me Ruffles? I said No! Why don't you ever listen to what I say? Did you hear what I said? I said No!" 


July 28 Shaker's Campsite 1538 Miles
On a clear morning, Trail Mix and Stitches left me behind on the trail rather easily. I walked up to The Ledges, an easy rise with a nice view of the mountains. Mostly easy to moderate terrain.
After ten miles I met 77 year old Turtle who said that the Ledges had been rough and he may have to get off the trail.
He said he had been traveling the trail since Virginia. 
I thought that odd since The Ledges was pretty easy compared to all the very rough terrain in PA and then Mt. Everett a few days ago for instance. 
I walked a half a mile with him and we set up tents at a little site off the trail. I retired early.  

July 29 Upper Goose Pond Cabin  1548 miles
Did another ten mile day because the shelters were either tens or twenties. It was a warm day with some pretty swampy areas that you don't expect to see in Massachusetts. 
I had heard about goose Pond Cabin and was pleasantly surprised after a .5 mile walk to it, to find an enclosed cabin run entirely on gas, with a nice fire going in the fireplace. People were playing cards on the porch and the bunkhouse upstairs was full. I snagged a bunk and went downstairs and met Duane, the guy who Redo was so angry about. He was sitting at the table outside with his dog. I also met Turtle again and Duane and I were both puzzled by his story of walking from Virginia. It didn't make sense that he was bothered so much by MA. 
We figured he might have been confused.
It was a beauiful day and some hikers rented canoes and went about the lake. 
I watched some, came back to the cabin and taught Duane how to play Gin Rummy, and then went to bed to the sound of young guys laughing down below. What a boring guy I am! 

July 30 Kay Wood Shelter  1565 miles
Had a wonderful pancake breakfast given by the Cabin's caretaker and packed up and set out around eight o'clock. A few miles down the path I ran into Redo and said hello and kept on walking. I wanted some alone time. I wondered if she would run across Duane whom I had left at the cabin. 
After eight miles Duane and his dog caught up with me and we walked together and had lunch together and then pressed on to visit the "Cookie Lady" who handed out cookies and soda's to hikers. He said he had apologized to Redo about being a jerk and he wanted to avoid her.

When we arrived there Redo was there and she gave me a weak fist bump, I was with Jerkface, and I had some cookies and a soda with the elderly "Cookie Lady" and picked a few of her blueberries from her big berry plot. 
Redo went on and then Duane and I went on to the next shelter. Redo wasn't there thankfully.

July 31 Mark Noepel Shelter 1582 miles
Left alone from the shelter and was to meet Duane for breakfast in Dalton. Walked three miles into Dalton and went for an egg sandwich at the local coffee shop. 
I was to meet Duane for breakfast but I figured he would stop and have coffee with some hikers that I passed. So I walked out of Dalton and onto High Street for a mile and had a nice easy climb to the Cobbles, an outcropping with on marble with a view of Hoosic River Valley, Mt. Greylock and the town of Cheshire, where I was to pick up a care package from Terrie.
Then I walked three more miles to Cheshire, intending to sleep at the Catholic Church there. 
But when I arrived at the church, they had only tenting and had stopped lodging and providing showers. What's the point I thought. 
I met a couple of guys and we went for lunch and then I went to the post office and walked out of town , up a long pasture and to the next shelter four miles away. 
I met the two guys there, Dan and Dragon, and Dan told me all about hiking in New England. Got to sleep about nine. 

August 1 Seth Warner Shelter, Vermont 1599 Miles
I left late, around eight o'clock, and Dan and Dragon were gone, hiking the fourteen miles to the MA-VT border before they left the trail on their section hike.
I climbed Mt. Greylock, the highest peak in MA  at 3491 feet, on a clear day and then came down about 6 miles into the Hoosic River Valley and then crossed the border into Vermont. 
I was officially in the Green Mountains of Vermont. New England. It was also the beginning of the Long Trail, a trail that runs about two hundred miles to Canada. 
I have to say I was pretty excited about the prospect of hiking the great state of Vermont. Three more states left on the AT!