Vermont

“I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream. I can tell by the mark he left, you were in his dream. Ah child of countless trees, ah child of boundless seas.” – Grateful Dead “Cassidy”

Kind of a weird day. I came down into North Adams (slowly and carefully on the steep rocky slope) and when I hit town I started calling hotels. Williamstown had a lot more options so I started there. A single room in every place was going for over $100. Maybe something’s going on here this weekend? The trail cuts through a sad section between the two towns where two gas stations and a supermarket have recently closed down. It didn’t seem to be hopping exactly. I had been looking forward to an easy day and revisiting a museum I’d been to years ago, but after thinking about the budget last night I decided to press on. I went to the supermarket that was still open and topped off the food bag to last four days, then went to the laundromat and at least got my clothes clean.

It was hard walking out of town, hard because I’d planned on a bed and a shower, but also hard in that it was a big climb in the heat of the afternoon. The bright side, I crossed the border and I’m in Vermont. Boom, another state down. For the next 105 miles the AT is one with the Long Trail, which goes through the Green Mountains up to the Canadian border. I’m staying at Seth Warner shelter, (590 to go,)where I was happy to find the unreliable water source did have something worth drinking. There’s some gunfire going off that doesn’t sound too distant, unfortunately that’s just one of those sounds you hear in the forest.

Speaking of sounds in the forest something came up to my tent vestibule the other night at Crystal Mountain. It didn’t sound big and it ran off when I moved around. But it left a stink behind. Now, I smell bad most days, but this thing was terrible. I think it was a weasel or ferret maybe, they supposedly smell pretty strongly. Before dark there was also a bird whose wings almost sounded like someone sawing wood. I thought it was the rope of someone’s food bag on a tree branch as they hung it, but it kept going around the camp site. Last night at Wilbur Clearing something literally ran through camp at dusk. One of these nights I’m going to sit out after dark and see what is going on out here after dark. Or maybe I’ll just stay in the tent.