Nikki and Brendan Hike

Woke to rain again.  Rained a good part of the night and supposed to rain all day.  But short walk to the car and then we're gonna angel some more then get a room tonight.  It's past time for showers and laundry. But for now we're taking our time and enjoying a leisurely breakfast at the shelter before we tear down a wet tent.  Bleh. My least favorite hiking activity.  There was a very young couple here at the shelter with us hiking the AT. We offered to take their trash and chatted a bit. (Two Shoes and Giggles) The walk back to the car (about 2 miles) was damp but fine.  The green tunnel provides!   We secured a room for tonight at The Inn at Long Trail, a staple location.  More on them later.  We staked out another great spot for trail angeling.  Having a great time chatting with some AT hikers and giving cold sodas.  So many people came through!  I love hearing their stories and sharing our own and learning...

It gently rained last night.  The best kind.  Quiet pitter patter on the tent. We slept in a tiny bit and got up for coffee and to pack up and head back down.   We stopped in North Troy and got some supplies at headed south for a good, long, beautiful drive thru Vermont.  We got to the parking lot and set up a station to support hikers that come thru with ice cold sodas, toilet paper and a trash bag to collect trash.  (That's the greatest gift you can give a thru hiker, offer to take their trash!) Didn't have to wait long! After just a few minutes we chatted with a lady (Novice)  heading SOBO on the AT and she needed a ride into Rutland so we drove her to town and had a great conversation.   We got back to the parking lot and hung out a bit more. After an hour or so we decided to head up the trail to camp for the night.  Beautiful day, but rain overnight and all day tomorrow predicted.  So a wet walk back to the car. We set up the t...

Feels dumb to title's this as as day 28 since we're technically not on the LT now. Slept in a bit and hailed a cab back to the Burlington Airport to reclaim my car.  Grabbed some food and headed up to Journeys End.  We'll park in three lot and hike to the northern terminus so we can at least see it. Then we'll stay overnight at the last camp and see if any hikers finishing up need a ride somewhere.  Got up to the Journeys End parking and hikes the 1 mile to Journeys End camp abd set up the tent and dropped off most of our crap.  Then slackpacked the mile ish to the northern terminus!  Its so beautiful here.  We sat for a long while enjoying the view and chatting with some locals who were day hiking.  We made the right call.  My knee is hurting and we will have a ton of fun being trail angels. We brought up a bottle of wine and some treats hoping we'd catch any hikers just finishing the LT but no one came.  A little sad but not une...

Miles hiked: 2 LT miles: 207 Absolutely gorgeous morning.  And we had the shelter to ourselves all night which is incredibly rare.  Also rare is all the 4 wall shelters up here.  They've all just been the 3 sided kind up until here aside from one or two.  Took forever to get warm last night but we eventually did.  Made getting up so hard though.  But we slowly got up and made coffee and got moving and warmed up again.   My ankle is pretty swollen, had a hard time getting my boot on.  We headed down the mountain, both of us in a lot of pain.  We decided since the bottom was a major state route with 2 towns nearby to get a room for a night.  We hadn't planned to stop for another couple days but I need to see how bad my injuries are from my falls and my arthritis is flared something awful.  A night in a bed sounds like heaven.  As luck would have it there was an inn with a room for insanely cheap for this area abo...

Miles hiked: 7 LT miles: 205 Today was the best and worst day so far. We summited Mt. Mansfield,  tallest peak in Vermont and made amazing time somehow.  It was a lot of uphill as usual but it was windy and COLD.  Got colder as we climbed, obviously, partway up I gave in and put long sleeves on.  Near the top I put my raincoat on just to block wind.  We saw more people today than we've seen this trip.  Popular day hiking area. The trail was more mud and running water but beautiful. At one point we had to wade thru a lake We got the the first big climb and it just got more and more treacherous.  It was steep cliff on one side with a sheer drop. And nothing really, hold on to on the other side. And the rocks were wet in slippery. We finally got to a point where we had to turn around and it was just too dangerous. Thankfully, there was an alternate trail around that section And we met up with the other trail quickly. We got up to t...

Miles hiked: 7.5 ish LT miles; 198 Got up around 6.  No one slept great. Took a couple hours for my muscles to unbleach and stop hurting.  And it always takes a couple days to get used to the air pad again. We started off around 7:30. Mostly incline today but thankfully most of it was gentle. But the parts that were not REALLY WERE NOT. Summited our first mountain, mount Bolton.  Not nearly as tall as some of the others, but definitely straight up and then straight back down again. Stopped a little past the halfway mark for the day at puffer shelter for lunch. Lunch view: Trail after the shelter was brutal.  That's apparently the name of the game.  How quickly we forgot.  The mud is ankle deep and a lot of the trail is flowing water.  There was a lot of slipping, tripping, cursing and anguished screams.   We rolled into the shelter (Taylor lodge) right around 5 just as the rain started. 3 others here so far.  Just stuffing my...