Miles: 13; Elevation gained: 2,100 ft

Our first sorta serious day. Started at 8:30 – last to break camp. We will get better at that as we go along. Just a matter of dividing labor and getting more efficient. You have to stuff sleeping bag, air mattress and pillows back into their compression sacks, stuff ’em in your packs, break down cooking gear, clean that, pack it, decide what to wear (or keep on what you got!), and that’s if you slept in the shelter. If a tent, break that down and pack the fly and ground tarp as well. And you need water on the trail, and it all has to be filtered. We have a 6 liter bag that filters by gravity, and we drip it into 3 liter bladders that go into our packs and have a hose that we can suck on as we hike. The thru hikers don’t like carrying all that. That have a more nimble setup. All mundane stuff, but the better you get, the earlier you go and farther you hike.

First 2 nights in shelters, our company was mainly AT thru hikers. These guys and gals are logging 15 to 20 miles a day. It’s 2,190 miles total, and Seth Warner marked 1,600 miles for the “nobo” folks who started in Georgia in March or whatever and are headed to Maine. They all have Trail names, and so far we’ve met Yodi, Starburst, Poppa Jay, and Sonic. They’re all nobo AT’ers, but we may have seen the last of them as they log insane miles and unless something untoward happens to any of them, we won’t catch them.

The hike itself felt long to us, though 13 miles on day 2 feels respectable. The mud is never ending, and why thruhikers call this state Vermud. The last bit was a very steep descent down to Route 9 (runs E-W btw Bennington and Brattleboro) which employed a rough staircase built of massive rocks that make you wonder how Trail crews put them in place. Better than no stairs but no fun on the knees as each step was 6 in to a foot. Here’s where you really don’t wanna slip as you’ve got the weight on your back to give you an extra push down.

On the other side of 9 was an ascent of 1.6 miles to the shelter. This last climb produced cramps as I slept in places I did not think could cramp. Relieving them in a sleeping bag is a bit tricky. You can probably imagine why.

Gonna be a lot harder to post than I thought. Can’t see the site too well on the phone but the main problem is battery and signal. Nowhere to charge and our chargers are just about spent with 4 days till we hit a town. Might have to send the days in bursts.

Cliff peruses what’s next at Porcupine Hill lookout

Yes! A bear really DOES!