Day 134-Living Up to its Name

July 30-14.1 miles-Williamstown to Congdon Shelter-AT mile 1609.5

Today was another double milestone day. We crossed into Vermont, and we hit 1600 miles. 

When I got up this morning, things were not feeling so good with my knees (right one in particular) and my feet. I downed my morning cocktail of ibuprofen and Tylenol, and hoped for the best. 

Dave shuttled back to the trail for $5.00. We had a bit of a road walk at first. 

Over the train tracks. 

And up someone’s driveway. 

Just after the driveway, we were back onto trail. We started climbing pretty quickly, which is good because my knee does not bother me nearly as much when I’m climbing. The only nasty part was this rock climb. 

Yep, that’s going up pretty steeply. 

Eventually, we came to the “Rock Garden”, which is so named for all the cairns people have built there. Well, there are no cairns. Some people think it violates Leave No Trace. I, for one, am rather indifferent. It’s not like the rocks weren’t there in the first place. I’m sure people will slowly rebuild them, then someone will come along and knock them down again. It’s the circle of life of the Rock Garden. 

We continued on, and after a bit, I heard a yell up ahead. It was three guys who had just completed the Vermont Long Trail. The AT joins the Long Trail for 153 miles in Vermont. It is also the Massachusetts/Vermont border. 

Welcome to Vermont

Flat Will and LB have now entered their 12th State!

The first thing we noticed about Vermont is that it immediately lived up to its nickname of “Vermud”. Sure Foot said he’d never crossed into a State that so quickly lived up to its nickname. 

Usually, if you are crafty, you can work around the mud. 

Just a half mile later, we hit the 1600 mile mark. 

Guthook says so!

The light was not good for Flat Will, but he’s there. 

Sure Foot made this one. 

This one was a bit further down the trail. 

After accomplishing our two milestones for the day, we had another 9.5 miles to go until the shelter. We met a lot of people on the trail, many who are doing the Long Trail. But also, when Pennies (met in Cheshire), Sure Foot, and I were getting water at a small stream (that was not on Guthook), Fairweather and a guy named Zoom caught up. We haven’t seen Fairweather for awhile. We got caught up while we were filtering our water. Then along cane Lightfoot. We met her yesterday (she pretty much is running the trail. She also stayed at the Williamstown Motel. She also got water. I noticed her shoes are pretty worn out. One is all duct taped over the toe of the shoe. Later when she came running along the trail, and ran through some mud, she ran right out of her shoe! She thought maybe she should tie them a little tighter! It was pretty funny. 

At some power lines, Sure Foot took a break. I wanted to keep going because my knee was doing okay at the moment. Pennies and I hiked together for the next few miles. I was telling him about bike touring. He’s thinking he wants to do it (YES! I’ve converted another hiker!).

Sure Foot joined back up, and we continued on. We came to a river and a pond (actually two ponds).

The river

The second pond. 

Along the pond we were walking on an overgrown boardwalk. 

Trekking poles are handy for moving the vegetation aside. 

So far, water has been plentiful. This river reminded us of the early days where water was everywhere. 

We are camped above the river, so we get to hear it all night. It’s my favorite kind of campsite. 

I was telling Sure Foot how I was pretty pleased that I managed to keep my shoes pretty clean. However, I realized I was just wiping them off on my pants!

Not too muddy. 

Oops!

Tomorrow we are going to near-o into Bennington, VT. We were going to get in, resupply, then get back on trail, but I need to rest my knee, and see if I can get some of the swelling to go down. We’ll stay the night in Bennington.