Day 153: Franconia delay

So after yesterday's complete ass kicking, we weren't sure we could make it the 14 miles up and over lafayette.

We started the day by hiking down to the Lonesome lake hut for coffee. Sweaty Yeti aka Kazooie was there, as well as Dennis and Andy, two gentlemen we met yesterday along the trail. Yeti got work for stay and was going into town with Andy and Dennis.

So here's the funny part. Or the embarrassing part. I forgot August had 31 days. I thought today was September 1. Why does that matter? Well, September 1 is what Becca and I consider to be our anniversary.

So, since I thought it was our anniversary, I suggested we just go into town too and have a hotel day.

Well first off, I want to say that this hotel is perfect. We love it. Amd the market next door has a ridiculous beer selection too. And just a bit farther down is the woodstock brewery. But it was during check in that I learned today is august 31, not our anniversary. Lol.

So tomorrow we will spend our day going up Franconia ridge and stay at the campsite up there. Maybe we can string together more than 1 day here in the whites. But the hiking is preposterously difficult.

Day 152: Kinsman and 1800

We just got our asses handed to us. Wow. Soo steep. 12 hours of hiking got us only 12 miles . From the first climb every single section was challenging. No steady ups. No steady downs. All steep. All rocky. A lot of it kinda dangerous.

We got to the campsite, which charges 8 bucks a person, and got water hoping to find stealth sites .5 miles farther. But it was getting dark. And that .5 was just as steep a down. We did end up finding a spot. But with rumours of a 600 lbs black bear in the area of Franconia Notch that likes to steal hiker food we were worried about the less than awesome bear bagging we had to settle for.

Yikes. I don't know if we are going to be able to even hike 12 miles a day up here.

Oh yeah.  We made it to the 1800 mile mark!

Day 151: Moosilauke

Wow. We understand more clearly why our fellow nobos have chosen the darkside and slackpacked Moosilauke southbound. That shit was cray.

I don't know what to say. We went up and it was awesome. On top it was awesome.
But the way down was harrowing.

Steep and scary, particularly top heavy with a backpack on. At least we had planned to be out of food by now. Wow.

We resupplied in Lincoln for 4 days. With luck, we may be able to hit the huts for leftovers or get a work for stay and this much food may be enough for the whole chain. We will reevaluate at each opportunity to go to town of.course. The weather up here can turn on you in a moment and we could be stuck at a shelter for an unplanned zero. But the forecast is on our side at least.

Day 150: Psychedelic Maple Leaves Like Whoa

We hiked to the base of Moosalaukie today through a psychedelic forest of crazy tie dyed maple leaves.

We passed our first flip flopper that we had met and not seen since VA, Chief pretty feet. and then we passed another. Whoa. Then we saw TMI and bull, who had both slack packed over Moosalaukie southbound. We consider this cheating. Even though it's not. But it makes us feel more hardcore for doing everything northbound and not slackpacking pretty much ever. We rock.

Tomorrow we begin the whites fo real.
 

Day 149: A Whites Warmup

Dan the ice cream man had coffee for us in the morning. We are probably going to miss sleeping at actual houses more than we care to admit. It's been a long time in the woods and these last 5 days are a glimpse into a much more.comfortable future. But enough of that, we have mountains to climb.

In fact, today was spent going up and over just 2 actual peaks. 15 miles, only 2 mountains. But they were huge, and pretty steep with long stretches of slick rock scrambles.

The first mountain, smarts mountain, had a fire.tower on it. It's officially closed to the public. The penalty for climbing is up to $5000?! What about going half way up ?

Anyways, all I'm going to say is that we could see all the mountains around us and the tall ones in our future were covered in clouds. We were only at 3200 ft. Moosalaukie, our first 4000ft peak since virginia, was hidden. We were excited by the 10 day forecast that predicted partly cloudy into the foreseeable future, but I guess if the ceiling is low, partly.cloudy is not the same ideal hiking weather we have come to enjoy at lower elevations.

Day 148: Ok, now we can enter NH

Our first day of NH has been amazing. There was trail magic at almost every road crossing. It's crazy up here. Everyone loves hikers it seems.

So we set off with Toni, Warrens wife, in the morning where she dropped us off at the bus stop to Dartmouth. We got some amazing breakfast sandwiches at the general store deli.

We hiked through the small college town and at the edge of the woods found kazooie and Howzit had also decided to zero yesterday. Hopefully they meet us where we have stopped today.

The hike today is getting us trained for the whites. Steep. But at least there was all that trail magic.

The best was around 4, at the bottom of our last mountain. We had not eaten lunch today and I was getting real.hungry. As we exited the woods we found Marsha and Dennis cooking up.hot dogs for us hikers. We had two and a soda. That was our fuel for the next 1200 foot steep mountain.

We got over the mountain and for the 5th night in a row are going to stay at a trail angel's house. We are at the house of Bull the Ice Cream Man. Sadly, Bill is not to be found and there is no ice cream. We all hope he is on an ice cream run and we will get to see him soon.

Day 147: Rain Out

So here we are, at the Thayers gorgeous home drinking coffee on the porch watching the incoming lightning storm sweep over the valley towards us. Power flicks on and off at the house. The rain is expected all day long. Sounds like a zero to me.

Thanks to our wonderful hosts, we just chilled in the basement all day. We went with Warren to the store for food and some more new beers.

We love Vermont.

Day 145: We Love Vermont!

So the barn was awesome. When trucks sped by at night the wind vortex they created caught the barn and rattled the entire structure. I though I could feel the place sorta twist and then shudder. In the morning we had coffee with Dan and thanked him again.

Then it was more steep ups and downs and sweatiness until we got to West Hartford VT. Right when we exited the trail a family was doing a bbq for hikers. They gave us hotdogs and their three young children came by with homemade hikers census forms for us to fill out. Adorable.

Just.down the road was the bridge jump we have been hearing about for a week or two. About a 30.foot.drop.into perfectly cool river water. After the splash I could just.float and let the eddy carry me to the bank. I had.to jump 2 more.times and I plan on one more.if the morning isn't too cold.

Just across the street is a trail.angel named Linda that let's hikers stay I'm the attic.of her garage which is outfitted with several beds and about 100 movies. We are watching grumpy.old men now.

During the movie Linda came up and incited us down for dinner. I guess her grandchildren don't like bbq chicken. So we were extra lucky tonight and got quarter legs of chicken and mac salad and bomb pops. We are so fortunate.

Tomorrow.we hike into New Hampshire.

Day 146: NH, oh wait. Nope, back to VT

Linda made us a delicious pancake amd sausage breakfast this morning before we set off.for.NH. We cannot say enough about how wonderful the VT AT community has been.

On the hike we met a blind golden retriever puppy who was about the most excitable dog I've ever seen. He sniffed you out and knew exactly when he could burst into puppy mode and jump all over you. It was great.

Then we got to detour around a hornet nest, thanks for the heads up to whoever left that note on the trail.

Soon enough we made.it.to elm street, the beginning of the long road walk to town. Immediately we came across a cooler.stocked.with cokes. Just what we needed for the hot walk. A few houses down we ran into Betsy, who had watermelon and banan bread for us. Her son was a thru hiker and she organized the huge list of trail angels we saw at the farm a few days back. We were walking down the final promenade of VT trail magic.

Then we walked over the river and I to New Hampshire.  We just walked to new hampshire. It never gets old. Always a surprise to contemplate this distance.

So what then followed was the usual attempt.to resupply cheap. This time featuring a bus ride. We got to price chopper and after resupply we realized the bus was not.going to get us to the hardware store in time to get fuel. So we.tried hitching. But nobody was going our way. A bit of panic set in as we tried to decide the best course.of action.

So we started calling the trail angels from that list. We reached Warren who agreed to come all the way to West Lebanon to get us and he had to go to a store down there anyway. What he was getting was 30 packs of Coke! He was the same the fellow who had the ice chest full of.coke back in VT!

We stopped.at the Norwich Inn to sample their IPA and buy Warren a brew too. Then at the market we got to try another 6 pack of IPA for the house. So many local beers!

Warrens house is amazing with views over the towns valley. He has a perfectly fluffy small poodle that Becca is in love with. Also, pocket spider, who we have been hiking near since basically day one, has been here a few days. She got Lyme disease and is getting used.to the antibiotics before she tries.to get back on the trail.

We are again so grateful to the VT angels.
We love vermont.

Day 143: Past 1700 and a Devious Deli

We hiked into the tiny ski town of Killington.

On the way in we passed the 1700 mile marker!

We also diverged from Vermonts famous Long trail to head east.into new Hampshire. We should be there in about 3 days.

Bad news. Becca's shoes may be too big. Unfortunately the outfitter in town was mostly ski stuff, no shoes really.

Also to our chagrin, the deli was really overpriced because, aftwrall, its.in a ski town. At least it was a good resupply in regards to the type.of food available.

Again, we had a steep up and out.

New Hampshire coming up. The whites loom in our nightmares, literally. Becca had a nightmare about the whites.

Day 142: Up, but not quite over Mt Killington

Mt Killington is the tallest peak in vermont, but not tallest of at. The AT actually passes just 0.2 miles away and about 200 ft below it's summit. So when we got to the top of the AT on the mountain, we had to make a decision, is it worth it?

The main factor in our decision making was... no not the incredible view, it was the snack bar of course. More precisely, we wondered if it was it going to be overpriced, or grossly overpriced. When a group came down telling stories of $18 salmon burgers we decided that no, it wasn't worth it. Let's just eat our shitty food, we will be hitting a deli tomorrow in any case.

Day 141: Prepared for Killington

We got to sleep in because we planned a short day in order to do Killington mountain tomorrow morn. Only 12.5 to do.

Our first unique thing of the day were two rock gardens. One rock garden of coolness and the other of just meh.

It is once again really hot and muggy and the ups and downs are steep and painful. This far along the trail we are falling apart physically. Hard to stay in hiking shape.

I took a dip in bully brook above waterfall. That was refreshing.

We finished at a crowded shelter but it was easy finding camping just off trail.