7/20/01
A chilly clear morning greeted us as I started packing up for the hike to the Bennington, VT crossroad. Phantom was sleeping peacefully when I was almost through packing my gear, so I woke him since we needed to get to the road crossing by mid-afternoon. The shelter picnic table was a good spot to continue journaling while waiting for Phantom to get ready to hike. At 8:30 we started the relatively short hike. The trail was very muddy for the second day in a row. From the southbounder reports, all of the Vermont section of the trail is a muddy mess due to persistent rain the last two weeks. Besides being muddy the trail this morning has a lot of thick undergrowth which is primarily the result of the 1998 ice storm which caused so many trees to blow down. With the open canopy, shrubs and ferns are covering the forest floor and in some places are extremely dense and are encroaching on the trail. We had only been hiking a couple of hours when we met a Sobo who told us that a Nobo just ahead of us reported seeing a large bull moose right on the trail. As we descended to a large beaver pond Phantom and I looked and listened but never heard or saw the large moose. However, the muddy trail revealed multiple moose tracks, which were obviously fresh, and we were able to identify two different sizes of the tracks. We were both surprised that moose are active this far south and at such a high elevation (near 2000'). After a long stretch without seeing a lot of wildlife it's exciting to get back into remote wilderness where we should start encountering more animals.
We stopped at the Congdon shelter for an early lunch break where we caught up to Greenbush, the Nobo section hiker who had experienced the moose encounter. Soon we were back on the trail crossing over Harmon Hill which has a grassy summit with a view of Bennington, VT below. After a quick break at the top we tackled the steep descent to the VT 9 road crossing. The plan was to meet Phantom's friend, Julie, from Boston, at the trail parking lot at VT 9. When we arrived at the parking lot it was 2:30 and we knew from our cell phone call to Julie that it would be a while before she would get to the rendezvous point. Instead of baking in the hot sunny parking lot we decided that if we could get a hitch into Bennington, the Madison Brewing Co. (which I had visited before) would make a better meeting spot. I stood alone on the highway with my thumb extended while Phantom waited in the shade. Luckily we got a hitch in ten minutes in a place known for its difficult hitches. Ten minutes later we were inside the air-conditioned restaurant/pub enjoying an ale and pouring over the lunch menu. We contacted Julie and told her of the revised meeting place, then ordered lunch. It was fortunate that we made the decision to hitch into town because Julie had some difficulty getting to Bennington due to a poor map and poor directions from some folks she asked along the way. We finally hooked up with Julie around 5:00 p.m. to begin our adventurous side trip to Boston. With our help (we knew the roads since we had hiked through MA) we were successful getting to Boston (Watertown, MA) in three hours. I felt sorry for Julie since she had to drive eight hours just to get us and we certainly didn't smell too great after another six-day period without a shower. She kept the windows down as we whizzed down the MA turnpike the whole way to her apartment.
Upon arrival we met her roommates, Jackie and Ashley, and their boyfriends. It was too late to do laundry, but Phantom and I took showers and Julie kindly found us both a clean t-shirt to wear for the evening. We visited with the group for a while and surfed the internet for our E-mails before going to a local club for some cocktails. The Greenbriar Pub was crowded, primarily a college and mid-20's crowd. When we arrived the band, called Lulu's In Crisis, was playing an eclectic mix of 80's and 90's tunes, and I was impressed with how good they were. From my four months on the AT I have not missed television, but music, especially live music, has been something I have really missed. The six of us (Julie, Phantom, Jackie and boyfriend Paul, Paola and I) enjoyed the band and cocktails until the 1:00 a.m. closing time. Then Phantom and I got a real treat. Julie used her cell phone to order pizzas and we stopped on the way back to her place to pick them up. It was great pizza and our hungry thru-hiker stomachs were so happy with food to culminate a fantastic evening. Though my normal hiker bedtime of 9 to 10 p.m. was long passed, it was a nice change to hang out with the college crowd until the wee hours of the morning. Today's stats: low 48, high 85. Sunny. Today's mileage: 11.5; cumulative mileage: 1592.0.
