Day 140-No Worries About Water Today!

Aug 5-14.8 miles-The Lodge at Bromley to Lost Pond Shelter-AT mile 1668.7

After all that wind and rain last night, we woke to partly sunny skies! Charlie drove us back to the trailhead, along with Crockett, another thru-hiker. 

Our abode in the sun!

We were wondering what shape the trail would be in after the storm. It was muddy...but this is “Vermud”, so it is probably always a bit on the muddy side. Perhaps today was more muddy than usual. I had the little war with myself all day about should I try to keep my shoes as clean and dry as possible, or should I just say forget it, and walk through the mud. Mud patch after mud patch I would be this close to just walking through, but then there would be a stretch of easy to get around patches, and I’d be rock hopping and side stepping my way around. Shoes ended up being about half muddy. My feet remained dry (which is the most important thing).

The creeks were moving pretty good today. 

We had three significant climbs today. The first was Bromley Mtn. It wasn’t a bad climb, and the last .3 was up a ski run. 

This run was the easiest way down from the top (for skiers).

I think these things are snow making machines (there were several)

Okay, funny thing about this chair lift thingy. Remember when I was at the top of Stratton Mtn a few days ago, and I was lamenting about not getting to go to the gondola? I’d seen it in so many videos and photos people posted. Well, what I had seen in other people’s photos and videos, was not the gondola, but this! As you can see, it was rather foggy. Crockett joined us at the top. 

Crockett, so named because he was reading a book about Davy Crockett and the Alamo at the beginning of the AT, and none of the kids who were hiking knew who Davy Crockett was outside of Disney. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go down a ski run to get off the mountain. No, we had to go down this. 

Could use a weed whacker. 

The next climb was up Styles Mtn. It seemed a little longer than Bromley. 

A view from Styles. 

The descents always start out wicked steep (as Sure Foot would say), then level off a bit just when I’m about to despair that it’ll take me forever. Oh, it still takes me forever, but at least I feel like I’ll make it to camp before dark!

In between Styles and the next climb was Griffith Lake. There must be a road nearby because we saw some people who no way could have hiked far. There were campsites at the lake. 

Griffith Lake

The trail along the lake was some never-ending board walking. 

At least one can move fairly fast. 

The final climb of the day looked innocent enough on Guthook, but the last part was a rock scramble. 

Going up...

...and up some more. 

Nice view though!

The worst part of the rock scramble was that I saw a big snake. I squealed, and Sure Foot heard me and was coming back. I told him I was okay, it was a snake. When I told him what it looked like, he said it was just a little garter snake. I told him it wasn’t little. 

Except that we had a little trouble finding the trail down, the descent was not nearly as treacherous as the climb up. We made it to Lost Pond Shelter at about 5:40. There is a fast moving creek just below the shelter. This is what the water looks like. 

It’s a bit tea colored. Upon filtering, it is still a little tea colored, but it tastes fine. 

Time to hit the sack. The temps are cool, so I should sleep well.