sucker brook shelter to battell shelter

miles: 23.7

i woke at dawn and packed up. had breakfast by the shelter where “talks to clouds”’s husband (the grandfather) was up and about. last night he was quite generous giving me a hard selzer and some stove fuel, since i mentioned i couldn’t get any in rutland. it was old however with some rust on the top, and he said it had been used at altitude, so i kept having to shake it to keep it going. finally shaking didn’t even work. he let me use his stove to finish.

i filtered some water while waiting for breakfast to cool down and after breakfast i absentmindedly made coffee with unfiltered water. i usually boil water for coffee, but since i’m rationing my fuel, i’ve been having it with cold filtered water. i was about to pour it into the fire pit when again he offered his stove. i then proceeded to boil coffee all over it. lame.

i headed out a bit late, around 0645hr. i had almost 24 miles to go today, so i tried to push it a bit. remembering my lesson from yesterday, i made sure to do the hip sway thing when walking downhill. it worked beautifully. the sharp pains of yesterday only came back when i forgot, and by the end of the day my knees were tip top. (more on that later)

i hiked up to the middlebury snow bowl where again there were ski lifts. down the other side to middlbury gap, and up the other side again.

i skipped the silent cliffs as it would have been almost an additional mile. maybe another time when i’m doing a shorter day.

i hiked in to boyce shelter where a man was still in his sleeping bag. he said he only had to go 2 miles today because his daughter was hiking in to skylight lodge. i continued on.

i had heard a lot of good things about skylight lodge, but when i got there, i didn’t see it. the lodge itself was neat, but the surrounding area was so dense with vegetation that there wasn’t a lot of room. i walked down to the pond. i was hoping to take a quick swim, but it was not deep enough, and mucky. i needed to filter more water, but the shore was muddy, so i took off my shoes and socks and stepped into the pond. what i thought was 3” deep water was 12” deep with 9” of muck on top. gross. the vegetation came right down to the pond on all sides so other than the tiny mud beach i had used, there was no room for anyone to enjoy the pond.

i hiked on, this section of trail was particularly challenging due to numerous blow downs that had to be navigated.

i arrived at emily proctor shelter right around noon and stopped for lunch. miraculously i had some signal, so i did my blog posting. i sunned my socks and shoes and they were close to dry when i put them on!

as i left emily proctor shelter i ran into two sobo (south bound) through hikers. we chatted a bit, apparently they had that morning been in a torrential rainstorm and had to stop at an overlook to dry out. they were surprised when i said i hadn’t seen any rain.

i hiked on, over numerous peaks and past overlooks. i’m not sure now which photos go with which overlook or mountaintop.

the trail was quite challenging at times.

i finally got to cooley glen shelter. a couple through hiking from springfield, ma were there. needed to filter water, so went to the water source, which was essentially a puddle that refilled itself. i needed to use my mug to scoop water into my dirty water bag. after filtering, it was 1600hr. i still had 7 miles to go to reach battell shelter. ugh. it looked like i would be arriving late.

but then the most amazing thing happened, after a very short climb, the trail flattened out. i moved quickly along the trail. my knees were feeling great. i broke into a run. i pretty much ran the entire 5.4 miles down to lincoln gap in a little over an hour.

i crossed the road and briefly started down the wrong trail before backtracking and getting back on the LT. the trail was heading up now, but i put on the gas and kept going. in a short 1.8 miles i had arrived at battell shelter.

quite a few people are staying here tonight. two older ladies who have hiked the AT, a family including mother, grandmother, two boys, and a dog named “bandit” that barks loudly at everyone that isn’t his family. there is also a sobo through hiker, a young woman, but we didn’t talk much.

this site is light on tent space. my tent is crammed between trees, not pretty, but it’ll do. it’s not supposed to rain tonight, but i’ve been hearing thunder in the distance literally all day.

some additional shots from today.