Saturday, September 22, 2018

Long Ups and Downs

We crawled out of our tent on the lean to site in the Bradbury state park, we were up before the sun crested the tops of the tall hardwood trees. We rejoice as it is another beautiful day to be in the Vermont wilderness. As we hike through the mountains today our thoughts will linger back to the chicken that was grilled on the open fire last night. Grilled meat on an open fire seems to infuse the flavours with every lick of the flame, this gives a taste that propane can not replicate. Now that being said I do miss The Blackstone. The hike today completed another milestone, it was at Maine junction. This is the part of the trail where the LT and AT separate so today we were strictly on the long trail. The trail sure changed when this happened. The white trail markers were less frequent which had us second guessing if we were on the trail. Stopped for lunch and had the worst meal to date , it was corn tortillas they were terrible I actually threw them away but could have eaten the package the came in. Moving on from the shelter we expected an easy day, this of course was based on the map. The elevation didn’t appear to be extreme. Much to our surprise this was not the case , they went up and down and up and down , you would turn a corner and the trail would go up then up again. It never gave you time to get a break, to add to it the water along this section was sparse. Hmmm after knowing that the water was low that was all we could think about. The thought of stopping had crossed our minds but the terrain would not allow this to happen. If we weren’t going up or down we were skirting the side of the mountain. With no choice we pushed on to the shelter , it was a welcome sight to see the sign for the shelter. It said 0.2 miles away, do you how long that is at the end of the day being tired? Me either... but it sure seemed long! Once acquainted with the camp surroundings we made tents and prepared supper. Tonight’s gastronomic delight was beef stew over mashed potatoes. Yum this was needed after the day we put in. As darkness fell we talked to the other hikers at the shelter. We then made a quiet quick trip back to our humble abodes and waited for slumber to enter our lives. 5:30 am seems to be the times when owls want anyone sleeping to awake. I stayed in until 6:00 before making coffee as oatmeal.




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