AT and the Long Trail - Bennington to Killington, VT

The night of July 4th, Bird, Strider, Pizza, and I camped at the top of Harmon Hill, 1.8 miles outside of Bennington, VT. Coors arrived in town the night before to meet his girlfriend. We stayed up way past hiker midnight to watch fireworks..we gathered in front of a clearing in the trees to see the fireworks go off in Bennington. We could also see fireworks from three other distant locations - it was a pretty cool perspective, we were watching the fireworks from above them. Spirits were high knowing that we had stuck to our target miles and now only had to average around 16 miles a day to reach Katahdin on our intended finish date.

Month 3 - AT Thru Hike Summary

Three months in and I've made it to Vermont! Now starting to slow down and enjoy these last 3 states.

Heat Wave in Massachusetts

When my 5am alarm went off on Saturday June 30th I could see a red and orange sky to my right. I went to get my food bag from the bear box and continued up to Riga Shelter (AT mile 1504.1) to watch the rest of the sunrise. It was one of the best I had seen in a long time and I was excited to start the day - only a few miles and a climb up Bear Mountain until I crossed into Massachusetts. 

Connecticut, the Gateway to New England

Wednesday June 27th I was up at 5AM and the first on the trail at 5:30. The first mile was down hill to the Connecticut border - I was finally in New England and 2/3 of the way done with the trail! Our next goal was to make it to Bennington, VT (about 132 miles north) by July 3rd where Coors' girlfriend was coming to visit, which meant we'd have to average about 22 miles per day. 

New Jersey and New York

Coors and I got to Delaware Water Gap just before 3PM on Monday, June 18th and claimed some free tenting spots at the Church of the Mountain Hiker, just down the street from where the trail passed through town. I took a shower - more like a pressure washer - but it felt really good. There were no laundry facilities, but they had detergent and buckets to hand wash clothes. We were planning on taking a zero at a hotel in a few days so I decided to skip washing my clothes for now. Bird showed up a short time later.