13 August, Day 34 Killington!

Monday, 13 August, Day 34, 13.5 miles, Inn at Long Trail, by Crocadilly - Today we woke up refreshed and reinvigorated. The Inn was proving to be the remedy that we both needed and we were both thoroughly enjoying our time here. Papa wolf was full of enthusiasm to walk again and I was ready and raring to go and climb Killington. This is another big moment for us and I was glad we would be tackling it in good spirits. Scott spent a lot of time in this area skiing as a child and so was looking forward to hiking this portion of the trail. I am deeply in love with Vermont. It really is green and just so beautiful and clean and fresh! The inn is quite possibly one of my most favorite places in the world. I woke up feeling better than I have in months! We enjoyed an incredibly hearty breakfast-bacon, eggs, toast and home fries - the sort of breakfast that a mere few months ago I would have had to leave half but due to my glutinous tendencies now can easily finish in half the time!  Tailbone dropped us off at the road we finished on yesterday and were soon on our way. The weather was cooler - temperatures are starting to lower now and there is a nice breeze in the air making hiking much more enjoyable and less sweaty!! Unfortunately though today, unlike yesterday, there was a thick bank of cloud - Papa Wolf's penance for not hiking up Killington yesterday!! ;) But the hike was amazing and I felt super light on my feet and completely happy (aided by the fact we were slack packing!) and it was great to be hiking with Thirty Pack once again. He is a great guy in his mid twenties and someone both Scott and I have grown very fond of. (There are many people we have formed very special friendships with on this journey but he has been with Scott from pretty much the outset and almost seems like a brother to him which is great!)  The poor guy though has had a run of bad luck. Having been bitten on the buttocks by a black widow spider (the doctor wasn’t 100% sure what species bit him but this sounds so much more impressive!) that got infected and having proclaimed quite innocently that he could not imagine anything more painful happening to his butt he was just a few short weeks later to be proven wrong! The poor guy has now been suffering from some form of abscess on his lower back that has also become infected and which had to be lanced in the local hospital a few days ago. He is in quite a bit of pain and discomfort and this is on top of a stress fracture in his foot. We picked him up following a few days of much needed rest and he is certainly not walking as fast as normal! He only managed to hike part of the day as it was. As you can imagine the list of ailments, diseases and accidents that befall hikers along the way is quite long and varied. As well as the expected bumps scrapes and falls, people have come off the trail for any number of a variety of reasons. In just the last couple of weeks we have heard of hikers who have suffered copperhead bites, various spider bites, trench foot, giardiasis, Lyme disease (one chap we have been hiking with recently had 46 ticks removed from his body!), a couple of hikers have been struck by lightning, one has been attacked by a bear and unfortunately one has sadly been murdered. Apologies for the rather miserable digression - back to the hike…The walk towards and up to Killington itself really was stunning - we passed babbling brooks, streams, walked through stunning woodlands. I believe part of the walk took us through Gifford Wood, which contains one of the few old-growth hardwood tree stands remaining in Vermont. There are grand-sized sugar maple, beech, yellow birch, white ash and hemlock. The paths in these areas range between pine straw and soft soil which is delightful underfoot to very rocky and rooty and a bit more tricky requiring much more concentration! Today the devastation left by Tropical Storm Irene was all too apparent. The trail is actually re-routed as much of the old path still needs to be cleared and remediation work needs to be done - most hikers including ourselves still choose to take the old path. It isn’t dangerous… but it was moving to see the damage that the storm had done and how the landscape had been changed. Giant trees were uprooted, others snapped in half like matchsticks leaving the forest floor open to daylight. It will be interesting to see over the years how the vegetation and habitat changes in response if left to its natural devices of course. Bridges were gone and in their place rickety planks and logs - I still haven't fallen in the drink which I am very pleased about! You can see mini landslides and where the streams have rerouted themselves or had new branches formed. I am glad we got to see this. Just shows you the power of nature and how quickly it can change the environment. The climb up Killington was gradual and definitely not as bad as I had expected and there were plenty of other walkers, day and long distance hikers around. The highlight of the day was passing a beautiful carved wooden sign which showed that we were just 500 miles from Katahdin. I can't imagine how it must be to be a thru hiker and see this sign - overwhelming and a great sense of achievement because that’s how I felt and I am doing not even half of the trail! This means for myself I am not far off my half way point! I feel so proud at how far I have come. We climbed an elevation of just over 2000 feet, the trailhead elevation peaked at about 2150 feet. Despite the cloudy conditions we decided to take a blue trail to the summit of the mountain - Killington Peak which is the second highest peak in the green mountain range and in Vermont at 4,241 feet - although a relatively short climb it was straight up over large boulders and involved some serious climbing and effort! Mojo and Skye summited quickly like little mountain goats and that’s when I heard the wail from above me! Apparently they had popped out of the gathering mist unexpectedly and met a rather excitable Jewish lady who HATED dogs and was paralyzed with fear …except apparently she kept sidestepping towards the perilous edge of the mountain and had to be contained by another rather lovely lady who helped me out! We normally have the boys on leads when we know we are going to be entering areas where there are likely to be lots of people but the terrain meant this just was not feasible and the young lady and her mother couldn’t understand this unfortunately! As soon as we were on safe terrain I got the boys leashed up! In the meantime the lady helped me by shielding the manically praying lady from my dangerous beasts as I shepherded them past her on a rather narrow trail made of rock without incident and I thanked her for her help! Having climbed up the mountain whereas all these other people had come up on a gondola as you can imagine I was a little frazzled and this was the last thing I had expected to deal with! Especially as the boys were just sitting, looking at us, paying no attention to the wailing lady and the only thing the boys would likely do is lick someone to death!! So summiting Killington wasn’t exactly what I had anticipated especially as we were now closed in by fog which was shielding the stunning views we had been waiting for! I had to laugh though when who I assume was the young lady's father passed me and said "uh oh let me guess the dogs?" He kind of giggled and rolled his eyes as if to say jeez she does this all the time and I am sorry. So we walked DOWN to the top of the gondola and met Tailbone, Weezy, Rampage, Mango and Thirty Pack at the top of the ski runs - they had all taken the gondola up and much to our joy the clouds parted the sun came out briefly and we got some great group shots of us at the top of the mountain. After a quick lunch and enjoying the views we took the blue trail back down to the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail below. Going down was much scarier and much more difficult than climbing up! At least going up you can't see the valley far below or in other words if you fall or slip where you are likely to end up! The afternoon comprised of an easy six or seven miles towards the Inn at Long trail. It was a lovely walk and went incredibly quickly including a brief walk down a ski run! Before I knew what had happened the trail had spat us out from the woods into the field opposite the Inn to the woops and howls and welcome of my fellow hikers and some Long Trail hikers who had already finished and were making camp and eating pizza. It was then I had an idea - we had reached the Inn as I had anticipated in my daydreams, tired and happy - so I suggested we have some après hike beers just like we do when skiing …still in our sweaty clothes! So we went over to the bar and did just that - Long trail ale après hike beers - delicious and we had so much fun chatting with everyone else at the bar! Riff raff our German friend was there and it was so good to see him again! (Nice to have some European back up!!!!) The People you meet in bars and in town like this make you feel really special doing the Appalachian trail regardless of whether you are doing the whole thing in one go, section hiking or as we are kind of super section hiking and love to chat with you and hear your stories - it gave me a warm lovely feeling inside when we entered through the front door and I overheard a young boy exclaim to his dad…look daddy thru-hikers to which he replied cool! The young boy was looking at us in complete awe - makes you feel so good (okay I am not a thru hiker per se but am going a long way lol!) It was all exactly how I had imagined. We had a great dinner with Tailbone, Mango and Rampage and the others - I had been deciding what to have all day and settled on their delicious Irish stew! After several more beers we crawled into bed to a great nights sleep!