Rain, Mud, Rain

7/26 Mile 1,538.2-Upper Goose Pond Cabin-Ferdy, Greg, and I enjoyed a refreshing swim at Goose Pond, and pancakes with coffee served in the morning at this caretaker-staffed cabin. The truly amazing thing is that of the twelve other hikers in the bunks not one of them snored the whole night.

7/27 Mile 1,558.8-Birdcage Hostel-Greg left the A.T. after a couple miles in for the day, and shortly after that it began to rain. We walked the last ten miles into Dalton in deep mud and water. We did end the day with a shower, laundry and a huge meal though so all was well.

7/28 Mile 1,567.5-Cheshire, MA(St.Mary of Assumption Hostel)-Took a nero(nearly a zero mile day) today to rest a little more and pick up a mail drop.

7/29 Mile 1,579.1,Mile 599.2 from Katahdin-Wilbur Clearing Lean-to--After hiking only 8 miles to the Summit of Mt. Greylock, a light rain that turned into a heavy rain eventually chased us into a shelter. We've begun passing SOBO's(Southbounders) everyday, and they all have pretty good suggestions on where to go for supplies or a free meal and a good place to stay. We met a nice SOBO today named Ledge who told us of a free hostel that has a pooltable.

7/30 Mile xxx-Congdon Shelter-the guide book pages are soaked, I'll checked the mileage later. We didn't make it all the way to the free hostel, but we did make it into VT today. Then all of the sudden the trail turned into a river. We hiked almost all of the 17 miles today with soaked feet. Not one of Scooners top 100 days on the trail, but Ferdy seems to be indifferent to the muckiness.

7/31 Mile xxx- laundry mat in Bennington at noon-We're soaked to the bone. No rain all night, and then we left the shelter and it started to rain hard and didn't stop until we reached town. We might or might not hike more today.

7/30 Mile 1,596.2-Congdon Shelter

7/31 Mile 1,606.3-Little Pond Lookout-We dried ourselves in town, ressupplied at Wal-mart, ate some Wendy's, and hit the trail in time to make it to an awesome lookout that provided a good sunrise view.

8/1 Mile 1,623.1-Arlington Rd.-Finally, a day without rain. Still more than enough mud, but no rain. We were greeted with hotdogs, beer, and snacks at the end of the day by a couple of '05 thruhikers called Rye and Grey.

8/2 Mile 1,642.6-Bromley Shelter-Surprisingly, the rain held out until we got to the shelter today. We planned only 15 miles for the day, but did almost 20 since the weather allowed it. Also, we've heard rumors of rain tomorrow.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned our friends the three stooges before, but they're 3 brothers from Holland that we became good friends with early on. Well, one of them(Curly) had to get off of the trail almost 600 miles ago due to shin splints that wouldn't heal. Sadly, we just heard that another of them(Moe) had to get off due to a MRSA infection that will take a months recovery. Larry is hiking alone through the White Mountains right now.


--Schooner and Ferdy