Jul 17 - Vermont

DAY #120
START LOCATION: $tratton Pond $helter
FINISH LOCATION: Bromley Shelter
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 12.7
TRIP MILEAGE: 1,643.4
MILES TO GO: 535.7

Smoke was up at 5:30 this morning! Unprecedented. I was up by 5:50 and had my tent packed up pretty quick. We looked to be on track for a 7 AM departure. But, with lots of folks at the shelter, we got caught up in gab.

Our goal was to reach the road to Manchester Center, VT by 11:00AM. We hit the trail by 7:45AM. This would have been great, but we had a problem... We needed water badly. We opted to skip the crummy spring near Stratton Pond and push to any of the ample brooks coming up. We did this about a mile in. It ruined our schedule... Here's why: Smoke's gravity filter has been running miserably slowly lately. It took over 1/2 an hour to fill up two bottles, and we opted to chemically treat the last one, mine, to stop the suffering. I told Smoke... Gotta get a new filter. He agreed.

We pushed quickly to Douglas Shelter for a food break. We met some cool southbounders there and ended up swapping trail info with them for quite a while. By the time we reached Spruce Peak Shelter, we were quite a ways behind. But, we needed water again. We drank from a delicious piped spring.

At 11:15, I turned on my phone. I spoke to my mom and she told me it wasn't done yet. She'd call me the second it happened. By 11:30 my concerns about our hiking schedule all but disappeared. I got the call back from my mom... My sister, Lindsay, had just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy down in southern California. Connor Dean Banich is his name. The photo messages, emails and congrats started rolling in. I responded back. He's an adorable baby. I am so proud of Lindsay and Brandon and so excited to meet my first nephew. I can't wait... I'll see him the second week in August. I had a new spring in my step as we cruised the final 3 miles from Spruce Peak to VT-11.

We got to the road at 12:45. We arrived 2 hours later than we'd hoped. It took about 10 minutes, but we caught a hitch from a really nice middle aged woman headed into town. Her name was Suzanne and she said that her and her husband made it a point to pick up backpackers when they were headed to Manchester Center. She asked us all kinds of questions and she was tickled pink to learn her title in our world was "trail angel". We headed into the EMS where Smoke bought new shoes. Upon arriving, who else do we see but our buddy Nobody. We last saw him about 600 miles ago at the VA/WV border and 528 miles before that at the TN/VA border. We spent some time there catching up. His big thing... Who is this person that loves you guys so much leaving all the trail magic water?! Panda of course! It all came together for him. A great guy. I went to the Price Chopper next door and did my resupply. Smoke did his resupply and mailed home his old shoes. Then we headed to munch at Manchester Pizza House. It. Took. Forever. But after a 13" jalapeño, pineapple and pepperoni pizza (a concoction I thank my buddies Matty P and Jay for opening my eyes to), I was refueled. As we were wrapping up, I asked Smoke... Did you get the water filter? Nope. Totally forgot. He ran back to EMS and got the last filter they had... Lucky. We compared the new filter to the old... Ugh... It's a wonder we haven't contracted giardia yet.

We caught an instantaneous hitch in downtown Manchester Center. He was a professor of Psychology at Green Mountain College named Joel. His son, trailname Adiron, thru-hiked the AT in 2000. Joel said he's picked up backpackers ever since. Great guy. Hey Amy! Ask Raven if he knows this Adiron fella!

Smoke and I were gluttonously full from the late lunch. We'd hoped to do another 10, but it was now 5PM and the terrain was rough. We decided the right move was to just push the 2 miles to Bromley Shelter and make a bigger day tomorrow. Just as we decided this, our section hiker buddies, brothers Fred and Lou and good ol' thru-hiker Mimi were rolling up to the trailhead. They had been in town together overnight. It was great to catch up with them.

I'm a little on edge tonight... My temporary tent fix broke as I was setting up the thing. I rigged it up temporarily again and will have to determine a permanent solution when I get off the trail for my West Coast Tour on July 27. That's right, I'll be taking 2 1/2 weeks off from the AT to do a big West Coast road trip. I know... I'm nuts. I'll have more on that later. For now, I'm laying in a precariously rigged tent and the wind is howling... Cross your fingers!

-uncle natedog