Post 16 Ivy League

The week started with me experiencing another first: Hiker hobble. Most long distance hikers experience this for 15-30 minutes when first getting up in the morning. This is comical to watch and when I’m camped near others, and I look around to make sure no one is watching me. Fortunately I was alone in a motel room when I had my worst case of it. My heel and Achilles’ tendon area are often a little sore and take a few minutes to loosen up in the morning.

  Since I’m hiking in Vermont, I’m not surprised when I look to my left and see light blue flexible tubing strung from maple trees throughout several acres of woods as I amble past a sugar bush.  The AT occasionally goes through some pasture or hay fields.  It’s always a nice break to get out of the green tunnel and often a panorama opens up to me as I exit the woods.  These are the spots where I find black raspberries; they really slow my progress.  I’m also distracted for the next half hour after eating them because I’m trying to get the seeds out from between my teeth.  The one drawback to these farm lands is that I end up with wet feet for the next several hours if I cross them in the early morning after a dew or rain.

Late summer mornings are no longer filled with bird songs as our feathery friends have all found their mates. I have to admit that I don’t know what’s up with blue jays. I seem to be more aware of their squawking now. The late summer nights are filled with the constant din of cicadas and crickets interspersed with the occasional hooting of an owl.

I continue to get blessed by trail angels. A couple of times coolers of drinks were found along the trail adjacent to a road crossing. I met “Trail Dog”, a 3 time AT thru hiker, as he was walking down from his nearby home to check on the drinks he left in a cooler for hikers. He invited me up to his house where I filled up with water, listened to his stories about life and adventure, received some fresh produce, and got advice regarding where to camp that evening.

  More angels, Randy and Linda, live along the highway bridge which the AT uses to cross the White River.  They enjoy having hikers stay above their garage.  Randy waved me over to his front porch when he saw me walking by and there we shared cold drinks and war stories.  After I claimed a bed in the garage loft and went for a dip in the river to get clean, “Wild” showed up to find a bed and we later ate our meal from Domino’s on the front porch while chatting with Linda.  The next morning. I had my leftover pizza and the hard boiled eggs Linda provided for breakfast.

  I crossed the Connecticut River, said goodbye to Vermont, and entered downtown Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College.  Hanover is a nice college town and it was a real treat for me to sit at a table and eat lunch with place settings at one of the restaurants that had sidewalk dining.

NH seems to be in a drought. Many of the springs and small streams are no longer flowing. So I have to carry more water (and weight) and pay close attention to the comments hikers have left in the AT guide book app.

In addition to entering my eleventh state, I surpassed the 1000 mile point of my hike!

As I lay in bed one morning noticing the sky was getting lighter, contemplating whether not I should get up, I heard the pitter patter of raindrops on my rain fly. They briefly stopped and that was my cue to quickly gather up my things, race over to the empty shelter that was 50 yards away from where I was camped, throw my stuff in there before the rain started in earnest. After a frantic 15 minutes, I was able to sit down in the shelter and slowly pack up and eat a leisurely breakfast since I was in no hurry to leave during a rain storm.

I’ve been planning this hiking journey north for the past couple years and it is with some regret that my northern journey has come to an end for an indefinite period of time. My next post will be from some place in Virginia as I am now flipping down to Harpers Ferry to continue my hike through the southern states.