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Dear family and friends,
I'm now in Manchester Center, VT, about 55 miles north of the Mass. border.
After my last email from Dalton MA I visited the Crane Paper Co., which has
been located in Dalton since 1801 and run by 7 generations of the Crane family.
Crane has the exclusive contract to make the paper for U.S. currency and makes
other high end 100% cotton paper as well. They have a small museum where I learned
a lot about paper making. For example, 100% rag cotton paper is actually made
from processed cotton rags!
The next day I walked up Mt. Greylock, the highest point in MA. The top of the
mountain is covered with a spruce/fir forest, our first scent of the north woods.
There is a huge lighthouse on top, but unfortunately the view was obscured by
clouds and storms. I stayed in the $10 hiker hostel, bunks in a converted garage
room, but spent time with the better folk staying in Bascom Lodge, a neat stone
building built in the 1930s by the CCC. Good place for a weekend with your significant
other. Several day hikers there wanted to talk at length about thru-hiking,
so we got to be celebrities for a day.
Ten miles north of Greylock is the Vermont border. We had been hearing horror
stories about the Vermont mud from sobos (south bounders) for the last 10 days
or so. This is the point on the trail where the bulk of the nobos (northbounders)
pass the bulk of the sobos, and the exchange of information is quite interesting.
Coming down Greylock I passed one sobo with a scraggly beard and hair that merged
to form a single mane around his face. He had a wild look in his eye, definitely
a thru-hiker. "The mud in Vermont is f------ unbelievable, man!",
he said. He regarded me solemnly for a few seconds as if contemplating my fate,
then walked on. An hour later I passed a sobo who said "The deepest I went
in was up to here", indicating a point just below his knee. several others
told us that this has been the rainiest year ever in Vermont on the A.T., with
thunderstorms every afternoon for the past month.
When I arrived at the Vermont border I sat down to talk to a sobo section hiker.
I noticed I wasn't being bit by mosquitos - out of Mass. Then there was a crack
of thunder and the skies opened up in the most intense deluge of the trip so
far. I whipped out my umbrella, but the section hiker said with resignation
"Too hot for my raincoat. Welcome to Vermont.", and was soaked to
the skin in seconds.
The next 10 miles of trail were in fact unbelievable, more like the Great Okeefenokee
Swamp than New England. The peaty soil, high traffic from the combined A.T.
and Long Trail, poor drainage, and high rainfall created a series of mud pits
that could not be stepped around or over. Since my feet were already soaked
from the rain I just gave up and waded on through. At one point the trail had
been swamped by a beaver dam, with a walkway 6 inches below the water and missing
altogether in one section. I just walked through, feeling the joyful abandon
of a 3 year old splashing in puddles.
Dried my shoes out and stayed overnight in the town of Bennington, a rather
large Vermont town with 3 colleges. Our generally good luck on this trip then
reasserted itself and the rain stopped. Over the last few days the trail has
gradually been drying out, and the topography has been more favorable for drainage,
so the mud has been less of an issue. Mud does have an upside - it's very soft
on the feet!
I like this section of the trail more than any part since Virginia. The southern
Green Mountains offer few natural viewpoints, but the north woods forest is
delightful with fragrant fir, frequent beaver ponds, and moose. I've seen moose
prints but not the actual beast yet, but other hikers have seen them. Occasional
fire towers provide spectacular views. From the fire tower on Stratton Mtn.
I could see Mt. Greylock MA to the south, Killington VT to the north, and Mt.
Monadnock NH to the east.
Running out of computer time so I have to send, typos and all.
Best wishes,
Raven