Total trail mileage: 1737.3
Starting location: Barnard Brook
Ending location: Hanover, NH
Weather: 63 degrees in the morning, 66-77 degrees during the day.
Mostly cloudy and cloudy in the morning. Rain in the late morning.
Partly cloudy in the afternoon. Rain in the early evening
I am at
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=43.700893,+-72.286144
Snaker was nice enough to wake me up early (I had asked him to), so I
got on the trail by 6:30. I was making really good time today and
barely stopped at all. It didn't feel like a 20 mile day and I
reached town by 4:30. Of course, a bit of road walking helped (road
walking hurts my feet but I can make better time), and the trail was
pretty easy today.
There were a number of sections of really tall grass where the trail
was really narrow. There wasn't much in the way of blazing, so a few
times it was guesswork. The tall grass wasn't too bad in the morning
since I didn't see any ticks, but as soon as it rained I was drenched
on my bottom half from the wet grass. On the other hand, I am liking
the rain jacket. It again kept my upper body completely dry.
At one point there was a field mouse (or some other rodent) in the
trail. It saw me, darted 3 inches, and stuck its head under a leaf.
Good thing I am not a predator, because its back end was sticking out
in the open. I had to tap it on the side with my trekking pole to get
it to properly run so I didn't accidentally step on it.
I HAVE NOW COMPLETED MY TWELFTH STATE! Vermont is done. I am sad to
see it completed, but that leaves me with just New Hampshire and Maine
to go. Vermont had a lot of mud, streams, ponds, smooth terrain
(relative to the other states), and nice pine and birch forests. The
border between VT and NH has the nicest indicator sign so far for any
state transition. It is embedded in the bridge crossing the river.
Given that I made it into town at a reasonable time, I was planning on
continueing through and camping past town. But, Patrick left me a
voicemail with some recommendations (he went to Dartmouth) including a
breakfast place with donut french toast. It sounds like a
fantastically bad idea so I need to stay until the morning to try it.
The end of Vermont and beginning of New Hampshire has been awesome
trail magic so far. First there was watermelon and banana bread by
someone's mailbox. Then there were maple cookies by another person's
mailbox. Then there was a water bowl by a third mailbox (I think that
one was for a dog). One of the pizza places in town gives a free
slice to thruhikers (which of course meant that I had to get more and
a beer). Ben and Jerry's gives a 10 percent discount to thruhikers.
One of the fraternities lets a few hikers stay at their house for free
(thanks Lonestar for the tip!).
I ran into a few of the guys (Hopi, Corny, I am blanking on the
third's name) as soon as I got into town. Hanover is busier than I
expected and is such a shock after coming out of the woods. So many
cars and people! I found a replacement bite valve for my bladder,
picked up a few food supplies, ate pizza, and ran into Traveler (who I
hadn't seen since Georgia until yesterday).
Traveler and I wanted to attempt a Vermonster (20 scoops of ice cream,
2 cookies, a brownie, 4 bananas, 4 toppings, and whipped cream), but
we needed another person or two. We couldn't find any of the other
hikers so we started trying to recruit off the street. College kids
are pretty sad these days...we couldn't convince anyone to eat
icecream. Then, the people at Ben and Jerrys told us we could do a
half-Vermonster (which we called the Verwimpster), so we agreed to
that. It kicked our butts. We are so ashamed; we shouldn't be called
thruhikers. It was much worse than the half gallon challenge because
of all the toppings.
After that I picked up takeout Indian food to take with me on the
trail (yum!) and went to the fraternity house. This is pretty sweet.
They are letting me stay in their movie room with pillows and cushions
all over the place, and they let me use the shower.
I don't know when I will leave tomorrow. I was afraid of getting
sucked into town again.
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