Hi Everyone,
I'm doing great in Glencliff, NH! We are 389 miles from Mt. Katahdin and are so excited!! Yesterday we slack-packed over Mt. Moosilauke and saw our first peak above treeline (4400 feet). We had a gorgeous day for this climb complete with cool fall weather and blue skies. Blackfoot had some friends from home visit and we did a car/key handoff at the summit. Thanks for letting us borrow the car, guys! Beginning today, we are planning to do 10-15 miles per day in the Whites as the terrain allows. We've been hiking with Blackfoot and Mickey and Mallory since Sept 1 or 2.
Here's a brief recap of the past week:
9/3 We took the Sherburne Pass (aka the historic AT) into Killington and stayed overnight at the Inn at the Long Trail. The Inn was pretty cool and I had my first taste of Vermont beer... Mmmm, good. Long trail lager is tasty, and the nachos at the Inn were awesome. We also sampled the Magic Hat No. 9 - so yummy!! There are tons of ski trails in this area and they look awesome. Wish I had time and money to come back this winter...
9/4 We busted out 17 miles after a late start and finally stumbled into our destination - a privately owned cabin about .2 mile from the trail that offered our first view of the Whites. This would have been an awesome place to stay, however there was a family of 10 there before we arrived and I have to say, in 1700 miles of travel, these were the rudest people we've encountered. I have never felt so unwanted during my trail travels. The 3 adults never once reprimanded their 7 kids during this time and dictated to us where we were "welcome" to sleep. Of course, their german shepherd needed prime real estate before we got space. Well... still a little steamed about that.
Later this week we hiked into Hanover (9/6) and enjoyed our stay very much, especially thanks to Alexandra and the Dartmouth Outing Club! Alexandra hooked us up with a place to stay and showers in the AM. Good luck with your studies Xandra! Hanover was a cute, albeit expensive town. We enjoyed our visit at the 5 Olde, a little basement bar off of Main street, as well as breakfast at Lou's Diner. I had the Greek Omelet and it filled me up until dinner. That doesn't happen often to an AT Hiker, I can assure you.
The next night was Brittany's (aka Mallory) birthday and we celebrated by hiking a bunch of fresh food to Velvet Rocks and grilling over an open fire. I have to give accolades to Hans (aka Mickey) for his mad skills with back country cuisine! We had fajitas with chicken, portabellas and tropical fruit, squash, bell peppers, garlic, and cheese for the main course... We had mixed greens with apples, goat cheese, walnuts, red onion and balsamic dressing, and for dessert, Jello No-bake chips ahoy pie. SO Yummy! I'm still reliving the memory.
Then we ran into some rainy foul weather and shortened our mileage considerably. We hiked 12 miles in the rain to Trapper John shelter that was FULL of NJ policeman out for a long weekend. They didn't offer to vacate the shelter and apparently weren't aware that shelters are for thru-hikers, not weekenders. We didn't feel like rocking that boat, but never-the-less, we were a little miffed. It rained all night long and into the morning.
The next day we hiked a solid 6 miles to Smart's Mountain and stayed in the firewarden's cabin. The trees were whipped around by the wind and rain all night long and we were glad to have a shelter with 4 walls and a door that closed! We are all addicted to a new card game that Mickey and Mallory carry called Skip-Bo... so much so that we have house rules.
We needed to make it to Glencliff before friday night because Blackfoot had friends and his girlfriend meeting us there so we banged out a 20 mile day!! Might be the last one in a long time... Dan woke us at 6 am, then 6:15, and the final call at 6:30. We were out of the cabin by 7:45, a very early start for us, and we hiked 4.2 miles downhill in a little over an hour! pretty good. The rest of the day wasn't too bad either. We've been playing a word game to help pass the time but it's biased against Hans and Stephan. It helps to pass the time.
Well, thats about it. Hope you are all doing well at home and staying out of the path of hurricanes and their foul-weather friends!
Steph
Posted by steph at September 15, 2004 03:36 PM