August 16

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... 

Awesome hiking this morning.  Although it did sprinkle briefly yesterday, now we had blue skies and a cool breeze.  I can't mention enough how much I love being in the evergreen forests.  Some people feel at ease sitting on a beach, listening to the waves crash.  For me, it's listening to the wind blow through the needles of evergreens.  It doesn't make a lot of rustling noise like it does in leafy trees.  It's more like a whisper.  I love it.  We made great time on some flat terrain, with an early start for once.  Still, it's strange getting used to the sunlight up here.  Even at 10am, the sun casts long shadows in front of me.  We stopped for a break at Prospect Rock, with a great view down to the city below.  The mountain here was full of birch, aspen, hemlock, and fir trees.  Beautiful.  We made our way down more easy trail to a road crossing, and hitched in to Manchester Center, Vermont.  Had an expensive, and mediocre, cheese steak sub at a place in town for lunch.  Resupply at the grocery store.  We had our hearts set on staying at a hostel here, the Green Mountain House, but it was all booked up.  We had been hearing great things about it from southbounders for weeks now, and we even called 2 days in advance to see about a room, but it was full.  Oh well.  I'm thinking a southbound hike sounds like a great idea, and this is one of the spots that I'd like to come back for.  We walked over to Friendly's for ice cream.  I got a 3 scoop sundae for dessert.  Still hungry, I also ordered a hamburger meal.  This was no ordinary burger though, it had 2 grilled cheese sandwiches for the buns.  Delicious!  We got a ride back up to the trial, and I waddled up the next mountain.  We stopped at Bromley shelter for water.  It was just before dark, and Rainbow Eyes decided to call it a day there.  It's starting to get chilly at night, and he's still using his summer sleeping gear.  No bag, just a liner.  So he wants to stay in the shelter for warmth.  Slims, Apache, and I trucked up the rest of the climb as the woods got darker and darker.  It was cool out, but the steepness of the trail, and the fast pace, had me working up a good sweat.  We popped out of the woods, into an open field where we could see the sun setting.  We hung a left, following the trail, right up the steep slope of this open area.  Once we got to the top, we realized where we were.  This was a ski slope!  We were standing on top of Bromley Mountain, with three hundred sixty degree views.  A long time ago, Bambam had told us about a mountain top that had what looked like a spaceship on it.  Sure enough, behind us was a ski lift station, a white console building with a strip of darkened windows wrapping around it, looking like an Imperial shuttle from StarWars.  Not listed in our guidebook, there was also a ski hut.  Four walls, and a roof.  It wasn't heated, but it stayed sauna-warm inside just from body heat.  There were several other hikers here tonight.  We watched the last bit of the sunset, then wrapped up in our jackets to stay out and look at the stars.  Best night sky I've seen in a long, long time.  I could see the Milky Way, and even spotted a couple of meteors.  We decided to stay out under the stars instead of utilizing the cabin.  Apache hung his hammock under the ski lift platform, and Slims and I tented in the grass on the summit of the mountain.  What an awesome day.

View from Prospect Rock