Day 137-Up and Over Another Mountain

Aug 2-14.4 miles-Bennington to Kid Gore Shelter Tent Site-AT mile 1628.2

I think the zero day did a world of good. I felt pretty good today. The knees are not perfect, but the twinges are manageable. The knee braces do seem to provide some added support. 

Pete, the motel owner, shuttled us back to the trail at 8:15. We usually like to get going earlier, but that’s the earliest he goes. We were back on the trail by 8:30. Lucky for us, the climb from the road was not as steep as the climb down to the road had been. The skies were overcast, so it wasn’t too warm. 

We crossed the creek, then headed up. 

Guess what this is called? Split Rock (were you surprised?).

The only real view was from the power lines looking down to Bennington. 

Zoomed in view of Bennington. All the other potential views were either fogged in or tree covered. 

We entered and exited the Glastenbury Wilderness. Funny thing, Glastenbury Mtn is not in the Glastenbury Wilderness!

As we were hiking along, I met a woman named Dawn. She was actually going slower than me. I passed her, and she asked me how far to the next shelter (Goddard). I told her, then I asked if she was okay. She wasn’t. She said she fell yesterday, and thinks she has a concussion (she had a bad headache). She said she was going to go to the next shelter tonight. I told her it would be shorter for her to go back to the previous shelter, then get out to the road, and into Bennington tomorrow. I noticed she had an Garmin In Reach PLB. Since she didn’t want to go back, I told her if she started to feel worse, she needed to push the SOS button. She said her husband was tracking her. There wasn’t much else I could do, so I continued on. 

The climb up Glastenbury Mtn was not too difficult. Before too long, I caught up to Sure Foot getting water at the spring for the Goddard Shelter. There were some hikers at the shelter. I told them about Dawn, and asked them to keep an eye on her when she got there. Then, Sure Foot and I continued the last bit to the fire tower on Glastenbury Summit. 

I actually didn’t climb this one. Since going down is what bothers my knees the most, I decided it wasn’t worth it to climb up, then down, when there would be no view. 

It had been raining off and on most of the day. For awhile it rained pretty hard. It was windy too, so I didn’t get too hot in my rain gear. 

From the summit of Glastenbury, we had 4 miles to Kid Gore Shelter. I figured we’d get here between 5:30 and 6:00. It all depended on the steepness of the downhill. It wasn’t too bad. There was one up that was interesting. 

Who put those rocks there???

We made it to the shelter. There was not really any decent tent spots near the shelter. Guthook said there were some spots just north, where an old shelter used to be. Well, we found them...I guess. 

The view from the shelter. Would be nice if it was clear. 

It’s a little rocky and rooty, but we made it work. 

I’m off to sleep now. It was a good day, even with the rain.