Day 94 Firetower

Today felt easier than yesterday even though we hiked 26 miles with a lot of elevation change.


I slept horribly last night. I fell asleep quickly but couldn’t stay asleep for more than like a half hour at a time. My jerry rigged tent in the shelter setup helped keep the bugs off but may have contributed to my poor sleep. 


We started hiking around 8 after delaying waking up until 6:45. We planned to hike either 23 miles or 26 miles depending on how the day went. We began the morning with a cool view of Bennington VT.



We hiked around 8 miles before 11AM then stopped for lunch at Hell Hallow stream. 



We started hiking again around 11:45. On the gradual ascent up Glastonbury Mountain we had occasional views but mostly hiked through very thick greenery. 



Vermont has been very cool so far. The Green Mountain National Forest feels very remote, especially compared to the middle section of the trail through PA, NJ, CT, MA, and NY, which were much more developed. However, the remote nature of the trail means less trail maintenance. There are fewer blazes, the trail is much more overgrown, and has a lot of blown down trees to traverse. I will definitely take the trade off of less ideal trail maintenance for a more remote experience and some awesome views. 


We reached the top of Glastonbury Mountain at around 2PM. The peak would have no views if there weren’t a look out tower on top. Apparently the tower was deemed off limits to the public by the FAA. They removed the first set of stairs to prevent people from climbing the tower. Since it wasn’t a very windy day we decided to climb up the metal support beams to the first level of stairs which we could then walk up and see the views from the top. Climbing the tower was so worth it. We had breathtaking views. Probably top three views on the trail so far. 






After Glastonbury we hiked another 9 miles to Story Story shelter where we stopped for dinner. There was a crew of trail maintainers and hoards of black flies. We ate dinner and talked to the trail crew who were very nice. We then quickly packed up and walked another 2.5 miles to camp. We found a fantastic stealth site by a river after covering 26 miles on the day.


Tomorrow looks like our last day of good weather. We were planning on going into Manchester VT for a resupply and to spend the night. However, since the three days after tomorrow look like rain we decided to save our night inside until Tuesday. We are planning to cover 70 miles in 3 days but should have excellent camping and shelters each night. Then we will stay at an inn near Killington that is supposed to be awesome for hikers. 


Goodnight,

Walker





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