09/02 - 09/04 Rutland and Mt Killington

Day 54

Thursday September 2nd

Zero in Rutland

We are excited in the morning for free breakfast. It’s always exciting to find out what there will be. Each hiker sits down at a table and is bought a plate of some kind of cracked wheat casserole held together with eggs and topped with cheese. It looks really tasty and I am curious about the cracked wheat part, but I can’t bring myself to eat the cheese! I overhear that there’s a cheese free version so I ask for it and they bring me what looks like two thin bricks of of brown rice, about the size of pop tarts. I don’t know exactly what they are or how they are held together, but they are warm and tasty. Also on the table are an assortments of toasts, all homemade, with jam. There are plates of apple and orange slices and we can fill our mugs with as much maté as we want. It’s all served family style at big tables. We eat in the restaurant even though it’s open to the public. We just take up a little section in the back.

After breakfast we agree to go to the farm to work. We didn’t want to go if we were the only ones, but 4 other hikers want to go too, so we don’t have to feel bad about the long drive just for us. There was another tropical storm warning for yesterday and last night. That is one of the reasons we came to town. It never rained all day, but I guess there was some rain overnight. Further south tons of rain has been pouring, we see it on the news that some areas of New Jersey are flooded. We heard in the last storm before this one, that Tennessee got flooded. We continue to miss the storms, but it will still be nice to give the trail a day to dry out.

During breakfast, a lady from the community sat at the big table with us to eat breakfast. When she found out we were married she asked why we weren’t in a couples room. We said we didn’t know there was one! So after breakfast we get to move, which is a big relief because the dorms are never peaceful. Our new room is upstairs in the ladies section which is much nicer than the downstairs men’s area. The men’s area truly smells bad, like dirty hikers. The smell seeps through the closed dorm room doors, permanently tainting the hallways. The women’s floor is like a peaceful spa sanctuary by comparison. We have a nice big common area with a kitchen table, a basic kitchen and a separate bathroom area with 3 stalls of toilets and 3 shower rooms. The doors to the outside of the hostel lock at 10, and everyone is supposed to be inside, but somehow hikers were coming in at all hours and making noise. It was especially bad for Jeff being in the dorm downstairs with one of the only bathrooms. We helped clean up the tables after breakfast and the lady told us that the hikers that are outside late at night will text someone who is inside to let them in after hours so they can hang out in the bars. I wish they could just be more respectful and do what is asked of them!

We leave around 10, and it’s about an hour drive with six hikers and two staff in a van. An older guy drives and a younger guy sits in the back with us. He tells us about woodworking because that’s what he does most of the time. It turns out the community owns some kind of contracting business and they do a lot of wood working and cabinetry. They recently did a big job for the Mt Washington OMNi Hotel! They also have a company that makes soap and other personal care products. We have learned this just by seeing them all over the hostel. They also have a company that makes the maté and they have all the delis. We wonder what else there is. They have communities and delis all over the world.

The farm is located down near the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls. Our tasks for the day are to harvest nearly an acre of cabbage and weed a field of beets of about the same size. It’s fun and interesting for us, but also hard work in the sun! It’s nice out today and thankfully not too hot. There are also fields of kale, chard, corn, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans and probably more that I am forgetting. There are also goats and cows, both for dairy production. They make cheese and yogurt on site and use the winter vegetables to make various fermentations, like sauerkraut.

All day they make sure we have enough to eat and drink. We have maté iced tea with mango juice from the deli to drink on the way. When we arrive we are given bananas and maté peanut butter and oat bars that are made in the deli. They feed us lunch at a big table in the barn with all of the family that lives and works at the farm. Today it’s a black bean and corn taco salad with corn tortilla chips and a really delicious minty iced tea. Before we leave we get to pick berries in their patch of raspberries and blackberries. We are really tired on the drive back.

We go straight for the deli upon return. Our waitress is a girl who went SOBO on the AT in 2017 and stopped here and joined the community. She is incredibly nice, as is everyone we’ve interacted with here. We share a really delicious spelt waffle, made with spelt from one of their farms and topped with maple syrup, also from one of their farms. We also each have a sandwich. I get another veggie burger because it’s just too good not to. It’s probably one of the best veggie burgers I have ever had. They comp our meal, again, this time for helping on the farm! By the time we are done, it’s 8:00 and we feel as though we’d be asleep if we were lying down, so we hurry off to bed. Tomorrow we will go back to being full time hikers.

Living room upstairs with a rack of loaner clothes. It’s mostly skirts and long sleeves. All of the ladies dress very modestly. The sign on the rack says that they’d prefer you wear their clothes if you’re going to be doing any work for them on the farm or in the deli.

View of the same living room from the other direction with the kitchen table and kitchen area.

Green house on the farm with beautiful vine tomatoes and flowers. I’ve always wondered how the tomatoes on the vine that I see at grocery stores are grown!

The farm in Bellows Falls. It’s in a little valley. They have a clustering of housing on the hill and several barns.

Harvesting cabbage in my loaner clothes and hat.

Day 55

Friday September 3rd

Mt Killington

Breakfast starts at 7:30, but we go down early in hopes it will help us to get out of there quicker so we can catch the bus. Today is Friday, the deli is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. They close at three today and are closed all day on Saturday, which is their Sabbath. I guess they close early of Fridays so they can prepare for the sabbath. There will be a big communal dinner in the restaurant tonight that all of the hikers are invited to. Because they will be closed, I stock up on a few muffins, bars and a green juice, since I won’t get another chance.

We get our own table at breakfast by choosing to sit in one of the two available booths. This means we get our own communal plate of toast and fruits slices that we don’t have to share with anyone. We get our mugs full of hot maté and they bring us each a plate of scrambled eggs and brown rice with tomatoes and onions. It reminds me of a dish in Colombia called huevos pericos which means parakeet eggs. It is scrambled eggs with tomatoes, onions and green onions, resembling a colorful bird!

We make the 8:15 bus and ride back to the Inn at Long Trail. It’s a little foggy and drizzly this morning, so when we get off the bus, we go back inside the inn to wait in the lounge area for clearing of the weather. I find more nice foods in the hiker box! The rain clears out pretty quick, so we don’t stay long, but we sure like this place!!

From the Inn we hike up the old route of the AT onto Pico Mountain. About 3 miles in we come to a shelter just below the peak. We store my backpack in the shelter and take the side trail to the top. The trees at the top are all spruce and fir, which we haven’t seen a lot of recently. We enter the cloud and don’t get much of a view at the top. The clouds and fog are blowing around though, so we do get some view windows. We were hoping we’d get to see Killington ski area from here but it’s got its own massive cloud cap and remains blocked from view. We stay for awhile and hope it will clear but eventually we get cold and head back down.

We are almost back to the cabin when we see two hikers coming the other way. Until now we have seen no one this morning. It turns out one of the other hikers is someone Jeff knows from New Jersey! What random chance! If we’d hiked the new AT route or done this hike on Wednesday liked we’d originally planned, we never would have seen him! We talk to him and his lady friend there in the trail for awhile, then it gets sunny, so we decide to go back up with them. It is of course still cloudy when we get back up there but it’s neat talking to someone Jeff knows.

We retreat back to the shelter for lunch. We are glad for a warm place to eat because we got pretty cold on the mountain. We say goodbye to Jeff’s friend and continue along the ridge, rejoining the AT. We did most of the climbing on the way up Pico, so the rest of it is easy. We pick up the pace, hoping to catch the 3 PM bus back to town.

Just below Killington Peak there is another cabin called Cooper Lodge. The the shelter there is side trail to the peak. We walk past the tops of several ski lifts and then on a boardwalk to the gondola station. At this point the cloud cap finally clears and we can see back to Pico and see the surrounding view. There’s a restaurant at the top that we stop in briefly to look around, then we board the gondola. It’s free to go down, and we are hoping they’ll let us come back up for free or cheap.

Back in town we head to Walmart to look for long underwear. Up to this point we have been wearing only shorts. It’s going to start getting colder though, especially in the mornings and evenings at camp. They don’t have long underwear, but I am able to get a pair of lightweight leggings and Jeff gets some pretty light athletic pants. When we leave Walmart we notice there is a TJMaxx in the same shopping center. They usually have an interesting assortment of snacks, which usually includes Bobo’s oat bars so we decide to go in there too. We find good snacks and I also find another good pair of hiking pants made by Avalanche. Now I’ll have a sleeping pants and a day time pants! I worry it will be too much weight but I can’t pass up the pants!

Peter and Kae are now at the hostel and will join us for tonight’s special event at the hostel, the Sabbath Dinner. We wouldn’t want to go alone and are glad they are here with us. It sounds interesting so we decide we should go.

It was supposed to start at 6, but it starts late at 7. There is dancing and singing until 8. There are a few instruments and everyone sings and joins hands and does a sort of step dance in a circle. After about 5 songs, the dance floor is cleared and big round tables are brought in. There are probably 5 tables, each fitting at least 10 people. It’s a big crowd! The community members rotate cooking and serving duties, so some are seated for the meal, while others are working. The girl who was an AT hiker is one of the community members at our table. She hike SOBO in 2017 and stopped when she got here. She is 26 now and that was 4 years ago, so she must have been just 22! She will be married in October. It was very interesting to talk to her.

We are served cous cous with stauteed peppers and onions and a green salad with a delicious herb dressing. It supposed for be Friday fish dinner, so they all eat mackerel in addition for the the veggies and cous cous. We even get a dessert, a peanut butter cookie for the non-dairy eaters and a cheesecake bar for everyone else. They always have a non-dairy option, which is so nice! It’s 9 pm before we can slip away so we are pretty late getting to bed. It was definitely an evening for sensory overload, making it hard to fall asleep

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, brown rice with tomato and onion, fruit, toast and jam, maté.

The shelter below the summit of Pico Mountain.

Not much view but always neat to hike around a ski area

A partial clearing in the view. You can just make out Kent Pond behind the ski lift.

A small opening in the view, looking North.

A 32 Oz bottle of green juice from the deli and our farm picked raspberries make a great hiking snack.

Jeff and Ian inside the shelter where we ate lunch

1700 more miles to go!

Spruce and fir forest near the top

Copper Lodge near the top of Killington Peak. It’s easy to get to for winter skiers and snowboarders so it’s in rough shape from overuse/abuse.

A look inside the cabin. None of the windows have glass anymore and some of the sleeping platforms are very sloped.

View of the shelter from the other side.

Boardwalks on the secret back way to the top

The summit lodge and gondola

Path of the gondola down to the base

Picnic area outside the summit lodge

Inside the summit lodge, lots of nice big windows and seating areas

We eat very little junk food, but these caught my eye in Walmart! Oatmeal cream pies were probably my favorite cookie as a kid and now I love peanut butter cookies. These combine my two favorites!! They must be a limited edition item because I’ve never seen them before! We have too much food already, so I will have to remember to try them another time.

Day 56

Saturday September 4th

To VT 103

495.3 - 506.8 = 11.5

We get the bus back to the mountain after breakfast. Peter and Kae ride on the same one as us. They made the decision not to slackpack, so they return with their heavy packs and three days worth of food to get them to Manchester Center. The slackpack is so easy to coordinate we can’t understand why they don’t do it. They are concerned about having taken too many days off during the past tropical storm and have ants in their pants to hurry on down the trail, but they’d actually go further if they slackpacked it! Also slackpacking makes you feel like you got a day off since you get to hike without your backpack for a day!

They get off the bus where the AT crosses highway 4 and hike the new path of the AT, unlike what we did yesterday on the old trail. We continue on to the base of the gondola. It doesn’t open until 10, so we have to wait. Jeff’s friend Ian comes by to see us one last time and brings us a little gift bag of snacks, which is so nice! We love mystery bags of snacks!!

We ride back up and take a little refueling break at the top. It would be neat to have a meal here, but we don’t need anymore food and we have a long way to go to get to our pick up point. I make a note to come back when we hike the long trail!

From the summit lodge, there’s just a little bit more up to do to reach the actual peak. We didn’t go to the peak yesterday when we took the secret side route to the gondola. There’s a big rock slab at the top that affords us 360 views. There are lots of day hikers up there that took the gondola up or hiked up and will ride down. The free buses and free gondola ride down can make for a pretty neat day hike! We take in the view for just a few minutes then continue back down to the AT on a steep trail.

We are back on the trail around 11:30, which is pretty late for an 11.5 mile day! But we are in luck, because after the initial descent off the mountain, the trail is pretty easy walking. We follow the paths of various rivers and drainages down gentle slopes and on gentle footing. We make good time, getting to the highway by 6, much earlier than we expected.

Just before reaching the highway we call a Trail Angel. His trail name is Plans Too Much. For $5 of gas money, he’s waiting for us at the trailhead and gives us a ride back to town. He’s been retired from a career in the military for 21 years, and hiked the AT in 2003.

The hostel is nearly deserted when we get back. There are no ladies, so the caretaker D’rorah says Jeff has been imprisoned long enough and can come out into the ladies area. He’s been darting in and out of the room quick and using the downstairs bathrooms and common area up until now. She tells us there is another gathering tonight, but it’s at the houses and it started at 6, 45 minutes ago. We are happy to have missed it and get to do our own thing. We eat canned black beans microwaved with rice from a pouch, plus seasoning, avocado and tomato, all from the free food area left behind by other hikers.

She talks to us a lot and brings me a maté straw, olive leaf tea and two green drinks from the closed deli. One of the things we keep hearing about is their farm in San Diego, in Valley Center. They used to grow a lot of avocados, but switched to olives because of the drought. They also like the olive tree because because of their immune boosting health properties of the leaves which they use for tea. The tea is also supposed to be anti viral and anti fungal. All of the community members have been regularly drinking olive leaf tea to keep them healthy since the pandemic started, even the children. She says they teach the children to eat or drink the foods that are good for them even if they don’t like the taste. We will be interested to one day visit San Diego’s Yellow Deli locations. There is one on the farm in Valley Center and another in Vista. We also learn it’s not just Saturday the deli is closed this week, they are closing for the rest of September due to a number of upcoming holidays, so I’m really glad we got here when we did and could enjoy the food!

We take showers, do laundry and pack up all of our hiker food into our backpacks. It is quiet and peaceful, great to be the only ones.

Ian’s cool 1995 camper van!

Ski map at the top of the gondola.

View from one of the tables inside the summit lodge.

Panorama from the peak

Left half of the panorama

Right half of the panorama

Leftover challah bread from last nights dinner. We bring it on the trail and have peanut butter banana sandwiches with it.

Governor Clement Shelter. Recently all of the shelters have been different. This was a cool stone one. They are all named after people that were probably involved in the financing of the project, but there is never any information about who they are named after.