Day 50, Green Mountain House

September 2
Zero Day

We are enjoying a much needed zero day at the Green Mountain House. We can finish the trail in Mid-November if we want to do twenties and mid-twenties everyday. But if we get to the shelter every night and are stressed out and not enjoying our experience on the trail, what's the point? Now that we know we will be able to finish in time and still enjoy a few days in town, we feel a lot better.
Bob made us breakfast this morning and we got on our way. It took a while to hitch a ride back into Manchester, but we finally got here. We enjoyed a couple hours at a local cafe. The coffee was as thick as mud...mmm!
Jeff from the Green Mountain House picked us up around noon. Can't wait to break into some ice cream and watch a movie!

Paradise...

The Green Mountain House, the perfect place to zero! So clean and cozy 

Day 49, Manchester

September 1
538.1 down, 1647.8 to go

We made the quick ten or so miles into Manchester by 1:00, giving us plenty of time to resupply and get Ben & Jerry's. The best hostel on the AT is supposedly the Green Mountain House, which is known for it's very clean atmosphere and what else in Vermont... a pint of Ben & Jerry's! After doing a lot of miles in the past week, we were feeling like a day off.

We didn't want to stay two nights at the hostel and spend a ton of money, so we found a couple on a list at EMS, who hosted hikers at their home for free, Bob and Marge. Bob was very kind, he gave us directions to their home and told us he'd probably be gone when we got there, but to make ourselves at home. He also warned us about their chocolate lab, Bromley, who would lick us to death. Sure enough, their home was open and unlocked. Bromley came around and welcomed us with a licking. We showered and did laundry and sat down in their living room. We learned that Marge used to be president of the Green Mountain Club, the club in charge of maintaining the part of the trail we were on -- cool! It felt like Goldilocks and the Three Bears! We hoped it was the right house! It was.

Ah, that's what we forgot to pack...

NotYet at a well

Nom...

We walked up on some hikers trying to get a ride. His tactic was showing some leg

Bromley, the aggressive licker

Day 48, Cairn City

August 31

528.0 down, 1657.9 to go

Woo hoo! Today was our biggest mileage day yet...almost 20...19.6. We stopped 3.6 miles into our day to do a quick resupply in Wallingford. A man stopped for us after we'd been waiting for a while. 

We went to the Country Store and picked up some stuff. We were just about to wait for a ride again, when the man came back from dropping his trash off and walking his dog and asked if we wanted a ride back...Um, yes!

We passed by a giant cairn field. Cairns are man made rocks piled on top of each other to mark the trail, often on summits or where there aren't a lot of trees that can be marked with blazes. We remembered Unitic talking a while ago about a place in Vermont that looked like gnomes had stacked a ton of rocks. It was a cool site.

The leaves are starting to slowly change colors...fall will be here soon!
Even with our hour and a half stop, we did the mileage we intended and made it to Peru Peak Shelter by 6:30. Getting an earlier start in the day really makes a difference. Our goal is to be out and back on the trail every morning by 7....Sometimes we're great about it. Other days, we're lucky if we're out by 8:30. We're getting better though! We figure we should start getting up earlier, because the days will be getting shorter soon.

Getting my dog fix while hitching a ride. 

Hiding in the cairns

NotYet building a cairn

The leaves are changing colors

Hiker legs 

A view - rare in Vermont!

Day 47, Meeting Fellow SoBos

August 30

508.4 down, 1677.5 to go

We started up Killington with decent trail. We stopped for lunch at the Governer Clemont Shelter, which had a fireplace. Cool! We were bummed we wouldn't be able to stay at that shelter tonight. But we've heard there are a lot more shelters along the trail with fireplaces in them.

We were belting out songs, when someone walked in. A SoBo we hadn't seen before, Chicory. She started on Katahdin a day before us, but stopped at Killington and headed up to Canada to do the Long Trail, which merges with the Appalachian Trail near Killington. So she will continue on the AT and LT and have finished both at the end of her hike. The Long Trail runs from Canada to Massachusetts. Her friend Kyle was with her for the weekend, so we hiked with them to the next shelter and enjoyed running conversations. 

We had a great pace with them. At one point, they stopped to let us go in front, we insisted they go in front. They told us our pace was a lot quicker than theirs. We told them we were going faster than usual to keep up with them. So we agreed to all slow down a bit. Ha! We passed the 500-mile mark at some point during our hike today, but missed it because of a trail detour, due to damages from Hurricane Irene. We made it to Minerva Shelter by 6:00.

Enjoying lunch at a cute shelter

Day 46, New Average

August 29

490.2 down, 1695.7 to go

We got a late start today. We did our work for stay from 9:00-11:00 am and had to wait for the bus, so didn't hit the trail until 2:00. NotYet enjoyed making beds with hospital corners. They seemed pretty impressed with his work! When we were packing up, the chef came up from the kitchen and knocked on our door. He had a fresh, hot loaf of sourdough raisin bread for us -- we welcomed the weight!
By the time we hit the trail, we were feeling pretty unmotivated so just did 5 miles to the nearest shelter. We calculated the amount of miles we will need to do a day to make it to Springer by December. When we first started, the average was 16. We calculated six zero days -- our anniversary, injuries, etc., and were surprised that our new average was around just 19 a day. Not bad, considering we will have some terrain soon where we will be able to do mid-twenties on flat ground. Awesome!

Enjoying a fire...oops, didn't see the No Fire sign!

Day 45, Twelve Tribes

August 28

485.0 down, 1700.9 to go

We got started making great time! The trail is so flat in Vermont compared to all the roots and rocks in Maine and New Hampshire.

We had lunch 10 miles or so into our day. Since starting the trail, we'd heard from NoBos that the Yellow Deli Hiker Hostel in Rutland was a must. We'd heard multiple things, including that the Twelve Tribes, the people who ran the place, was a cult. Fun! We weren't planning on stopping, but stopped at a shelter for lunch and some NoBos told us how easy it was to get there. Since the Yellow Deli did work for stay, we figured we'd push on and try to make it to the next road in time to catch the bus. We booked it with plenty of time to spare. We were near the side of the road figuring out the way to our bus stop, when a lady pulled over and offered us a ride. Life question: why is it that when you're not planning on hitching a ride, someone pulls over to ask if you need one...but when you've been standing on the side of the road for forty minutes with your thumb up, nobody stops? She drove us to EMS, where NotYet picked up some underwear...

We arrived at the Yellow Deli around 7:00. Bunks were full in both the male and female rooms. They told us to give them fifteen minutes, they'd figure something out. Turns out, they cleared out one of their private rooms upstairs for us! 

We enjoyed a late dinner in the deli and talking with Lev, about what they believed. Very interesting conversation.

Shortly after dinner, they gathered around in a circle around us and started chanting in a secret language and wafting incense in our faces. We drank of a communal cup of tea. Suddenly, we were enlightened and decided to stop hiking and become members of the Twelve Tribes...

Just kidding. We went to bed.

NotYet rocking some new underwear

Yellow Deli hostel

Sign on the room they cleared for us

Welcome basket

Day 44, Trail Magic and Cows

August 27

468.4 down, 1717.5

Betsy arranged for us to get a ride back to where we stopped yesterday from Kate, a trail angel. We made a pit stop about a mile in at the Full Belly Deli, where we split a breakfast burrito and coffee.... Ahhh, coffee! We met Blackhawk, who we had heard about from other NoBos. NotYet enjoyed chatting with him about being prior service and what else? Blackhawks. There are a lot of prior military out on the trail. 

A few miles into our day some NoBos told us about trail magic a few miles ahead, but we weren't sure if any would be left by the time we got there. We got to Cloudland Road and a cooler was sitting near a tree with gallons of ice water. We opened the cooler that had just been restocked. It had Pringles, string cheese, PB&J sammies, rice crispy treats, cookies and gum! We enjoyed stopping for a bit and chowing down! The fact that we'd just stopped an hour earlier for lunch was irrelevant. This was free food!

We were tired towards the evening, but pushed on three more miles to Winturri Shelter. Since we have been without a hard rain for about two weeks, a lot of little streams have dried up. The water source at this shelter was down to a trickle so it took a while to fill up, but it was great spring water.

Huge bee looking thing! It's stinger was so long

Trail magic

The cows wanted trail magic too

Inside a shelter...we were tempted