November 16, 2024 3 min to read

AT Blog: Day 109 and 110

Resting Up, Meeting New Faces and Saying Goodbye

Day 109:

I sleep in at Days Inn at Rutland. I enjoy their breakfast, its not a full continental breakfast, but it has waffles, hard boiled eggs, cereal and bagels, which covers the essential food groups… I think?

Beyond that I relax for a while, enjoying my room till checkout time, then head off via shuttle back to the trail.

I’m doing a short hike today, pretty much just climbing Killington Mountain then stopping at Gifford Woods State Park. The mountain is tough, but the later start and shorter journey helps.

Beyond the woods, I get to Maine Junction, where the Long Trail and the AT finally separate. The two trails have used the same path for over a hundred miles since I lefy Massachusetts. Now they split with the Long Trail heading north towards Canada, and the AT heading to Katahdin.

A few miles later I get to Gifford State park. They have primitive campsites for 6 bucks, which I purchase for the night. In addition they give me an ice pop which is great for this hot day. I also meet Pack Mule, who is doing a long section of the AT, and the last section of to complete the AT.

One advantage he has for hiking the AT in parts is enjoying the days more. Especially as I get to the end I want to keep going skipping views that aren’t noteworthy so I have more time to hike. I get a feeling that if I split it into 3 years like he did I would have explored more seen more blue blazes off trail.

Day 108:

Wake up and get going out of Gifford State Park. It’s a sad morning, as I dump my old thermarest pad. It stayed with me through the entire hike. I’m almost certain it’s been on all my hikes since I was 8 or 9.

So it feels a little weird I just dumped it in a dumpster without ceremony.

I head off trail real fast to stop by a deli and pick up breakfast and a snack for later. I meet a long section hiker who had just finished a long section of the AT a week ago, named CD. We chat for a few minutes and he talks about the Vermont section.

Shortly down the trail is Thundering Falls, a waterfall and boardwalk that’s impressive. It’s the first waterfall of note for a long time on the trail. Right after is Quimby Mountain, a terrible 1300 foot climb in a mile, that took forever to climb.

The rest of the day has lots of climbs, going up and down mountains. Additionally it starts to rain in the afternoon, slowly soaking me. Fortunately I have good rain gear but about a mile before I camp, I go through meadows. The meadows have tall grasses going up to my chest growing over the trail and brush up against me. Which means I get soaked all over unfortunately.

I cross over the next and start climbing up Dana Hill, before I find a flat spot and camp for the night. There’s still some rain so my stuff will get wet for sure tonight.

I ended up doing about 20.4 miles to 1732