August 19

Big miles, big smiles

In a few miles after leaving camp this morning, we came down into Clarendon Gorge.  There was a suspension bridge that allowed crossing from one side of the gorge to the other, high above the water below.  Rainbow had packed up early and moved on, but Slims, Apache, and I went down a side trail to the river to scope things out.  It was a bright and sunny morning, and there was a small swimming hole of waist deep water, so we went for a dip.  Soon after, the students from UV came down.  Their group leader had done the Long Trail before, and knew of a better spot.  Just 50 feet down stream, there was a massive swimming hole, with a rock ledge.  The jump from there was only 15 or 20 feet into the water.  I never felt the bottom.  Such a good idea.  After a few jumps, we got out of the water and continued hiking.  We stopped for lunch at Clarendon shelter, then made it a few more miles to Cold River Road.  At the road, there were several signs and maps posted by the Forest Service and the local hiking club, stating that the following section had been rerouted.  We've seen a couple reroutes in Vermont so far, but they were all really short, just to bypass a footbridge that had been washed out or whatever.  Hurricane Irene last year did massive damage in Vermont.  I remember reading how the entire AT in the state was closed for a while.  So we began a several mile long road walk detour around the Cold River/Gould Brook area.  The detour turned out to be fortunate for us, since by taking it, we passed a small sign pointing to 'Tangled Root Farm'.  We walked up a dirt road to the farm and talked to the young couple who owned the place.  We bought a quart of raw goat milk.  It was ice cold and delicious.  Also, we were given some free veggies from the garden.  Shitake mushrooms, cucumbers, parsley, kale, and spicy mustard greens that tasted like wasabi.  Really cool place.  They're a small scale farm, just producing a few crops, chickens, and various goat milk products.  Under FDA laws in the state, they can't sell some of their products at stores or even farmers markets, since their goods are raw, unpasteurized, etc.  You have to actually come to the farm to buy them.  They get a lot of business from locals in the area.  It was neat to see a small farm like this that provides goods for the people in its immediate vicinity.  We hiked on, finishing the reroute, and ended up at the Governor Clemont shelter.  When we looked at the next section in the guidebook, we saw we had a slow climb of about 2000 feet over the next 4 miles or so, up to the Shrewsbury Peak Trail.  The book was wrong.  I think there's just been too many changes in Vermont since the book went into print.  The climb up to Cooper Lodge shelter was way steeper than it looked.  At one point the trail was really difficult to find.  Slims and Apache were waiting for me at the shelter, and we took the side trail behind the shelter to the top of Killington Peak.  The climb up was ridiculous.  Hand over hand, pulling myself up and over rocks, grabbing on to any available root or tree.  I'm imagining this is training for the Whites and southern Maine, except instead of a 0.2 mile climb, it'll be a couple miles of it.  The view from the top made it worth it.  We were over 4000 feet up, on the top of Killington.  We could see mountains in every direction from the exposed rock face we stood on.  Then, to the east, we could see some massive mountains rising up in the distance.  The Whites!  We headed back down after a short break, since at the summit it was starting to get chilly and windy.  Tink showed up, and she and Samson hiked up to the summit to camp.  Glad she's got her cold weather gear back, because it'll get tested tonight for sure.  The three of us guys hiked on, and rolled in to the Churchill Scott shelter just after dark.  No sign of Rainbow Eyes though.  We had just finished a 20.1 mile day.  Slims got a text from Rainbow, who had pushed on a few more miles.  Wow.  Today was amazing.  We did a big day, coming right off a marathon day no less, and still took plenty of breaks, and saw some amazing things.  And to top it all off, it was the first day in Vermont that it didn't rain at all.

Me crossing Clarendon Gorge.