Summary: Random campsite: 1544.3 Kay Wood Shelter: 1565.7 Total miles: 21.4 The bugs gave us a little break in the morning, at least enough for us to make coffee. But once we started moving so did they. The day ahead looked fairly flat and we were psyched that it was over a number of footbridges. At least at first. None of the foot bridges seemed close to dry and they were slick slick slick. Dean skated several feet down one and caught himself in a sprint. Tyler slipped off of one into some mud. Emily nearly full face planted off of one and was trapped under her bag, giggling, until Tyler and Dean helped her up. We also passed upper Goose Pond cabin early in the day. We later learned that our campsite from the night before was a horrible mistake. The cabin at the pond has pancakes and coffee in the morning, and often they are blueberry pancakes from the trail renowned "Cookie Lady" who had a pick your own blueberry patch near the end of our day. One South bounder, Milkshake, told us all about her excitement, and we lamented the error of our ways. Our lunch break was in the middle of several streams. We stopped at one and even the filtered water was fairly brown. Apparently a lot of the water in the area is brown, but fine to drink (once treated). It tasted a little odd, but nowhere close to the horrid water in New York and New Jersey. Despite the slips and falls, we were moving quite well. Tyler's cold is nearly gone, Patch, despite still sounding congested, assures us that he's feeling great, Emily though is starting to get a sore throat and is worried about what's to come. We did pummel her with vitamin c so hopefully that will help. Dean, so far, is untouched, though, probably through his paranoid vigilance. At the October Mountain shelter, we were reminded of the upcoming cookie lady and pushed on to find the promised blueberries and possible cookies. Sadly, there was a big closed sign on the stand by the house at the road crossing. It was sunday, and even cookie ladies need breaks. Or possibly she didn't and was shuttling hikers around. We were a bit bummed, but didn't wait around to investigate further and moved on.
As we closed on to the shelter, we ran by a familiar face who we hadn't seen since the fateful night in Iron Mountain Shelter twenty six miles before Damascus. Stick in the Woods! Train expert, positivity extraordinaire, and all around good dude. We were stoked to see him again. We hoped to catch up a bit in the shelter but by the time night time chores were done, it was bed time.
Grant, his friend, and his dad were also at the shelter. He's hiking with his dad for the weekend and his buddy until the end of Vermont. We didn't get a chance to catch up with those guys much either. We decided to head to bed early, so we could wake up at around five to beat the rain into Dalton the next day. We heard it was supposed to rain at eleven and then for the next twenty four hours so we wanted to get as much done as possible before it hit. We even made the daring decision to try and ignore people and bugs and sleep in the shelter. What could go wrong...
