Day: 103
Date: Saturday, 05 August 2023
Start: Old Seth Warner Shelter Site (AT Mile 1607.5)
Finish: VT Route 9 (AT Mile 1619.0) but staying in Bennington.
Daily Kilometres: 17.8
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 2671.3
Weather: Warm and mostly sunny.
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Chips, ice-cream.
Dinner: Cheeseburger & fries, ice-cream.
Aches: Dave - rib still sore, shoulder chafing; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: None really.
Lowlight: None really.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke at 5:00am to a foggy dawn. It is noticeably darker later in the mornings now and we need headlamps until 5:30am. Like setting up camp, packing up has become pure routine, with us going through the same sequence every day when we are camping. The first 30 minutes packing/dressing is done inside the tent, then it takes another 30 minutes to take down the tent and pack our rucksacks. The whole process can be done without a word being said and very quietly as was done this morning when there were some others camped nearby.
We were hiking by 6:00am with a little over 11 miles to go to the VT Route 9 crossing, our goal for the day. We had booked a motel room for two nights at a motel popular with hikers and the manager said he will pick us up if we phone him from the top of Harmon Hill, about two miles short of the highway where there was no phone reception.
Eleven miles sounded comfortable, but the trail had other ideas. The forest was dank and the trail wet and boggy peppered with roots and rocks. Occasionally there were narrow boardwalks across the swampiest sections. Everything was slippery and it was often impossible to judge the thickness of the mud or find a way around it. Julie, in her running shoes, occasionally sank in well over her ankles. There was some cursing.
Our average speed was less than 2mph and we fear this will become the standard for the remainder of our journey.
On the plus side, the weather was good, there were only a few mosquitoes, and we passed some lovely peaceful ponds. We took a break halfway to the highway and phoned the motel owner from the top of Harmon Hill as promised. He said he would pick us up in 70 minutes, which seemed more time than necessary given we only had 1.7 miles to go, but the descent from the mountain was very steep and rocky and it took Dave nearly all of the 70 minutes to get down.
When we reached the road crossing, we found some "trail angels" offering "trail magic" to thru-hikers. We said we were waiting to go into town and felt bad taking any of their goodies, but they insisted that we do. We drank, ate and chatted until the motel owner turned up and drove us into Bennington. The motel is fine, and cheap, but not ideally located, so we had to make do with what we could find in the adjacent gas station for lunch.
Later we walked into the centre of town for dinner and collected our clean laundry from the motel owner, who had done it for $5, on the way back to our room.
Looking forward to a day off tomorrow.
gotta love those places where someone else does the laundry even if it costs!
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