August 10

Ah a nice soft bed - and a pillow. I still woke up at 5 something to the trees dripping wet (it rained all night) but I'm dry.

Gray Jay and Right On got all their stuff packed up then we all headed over to a little cafe for breakfast. Buckeye came with us too.

Now I was quite disappointed in Right On and Gray Jay. They ordered pancakes and neither of them could finish more than half. Long distance hikers are supposed to be able to eat anything.

It was sad to say goodbye, but we would probably see them one more time before they were gone for good. We wanted to slack over Bromely today, but Beth looked totally wiped out and she wanted clean clothes, so she hopped into bed and I went down to the laundromat to wash up. Well I ran our clothes through and they still smelled awful - so I did it again. The socks were a little smelly still, but not bad.

It was afternoon by the time I got back to Suttons and it was SUNNY. Thunderstorms were predicted fro the afternoon. By the time Beth and I were all ready to go (and bought lunch for the trail) it was after 1. By the time we caught a taxi to Mad Tom Notch it was 2pm.

I was sure that we had missed our friends coming down the mountain - but no. After just a couple of minutes we ran into Gray Jay then Right On then Buckeye. They all had a long lunch on top of Bromely Mt. since the weather was so nice.

And it was lovely. The sun was shining, a cool wind was blowing and by now we were used to slogging through the mud. We even joked about getting our nice lean clothes all muddy again.

It took us about 1 1/2hrs to hike to the top. We quickly went up the watch tower. What views. It was a bit hazy and some mountains were shrouded with clouds, but that made it even lovelier. I didn't take any photos because a light rain/mist was blowing through.

I ate lunch quickly then stood up again to see the views. A huge thunderstorm was moving in and quickly. I had Beth hurry and finish so we could get off the mountain before the lightning hit. We made it into the trees before it hit. It actually hit a little north of us so the lightning wasn't that close, but we did get poured on. As quickly as it came it went away and the sun came out. The trees were raining little bits of crystal. It was beautiful.

We got to the bottom at 5pm and the cab wasn't supposed to be back until 6, so we waited. At 6:20 I was going to give up on him and hitch to town but as soon as we stood up he showed up.

Back to town for showers and pizza. Over pizza we planned our next section. Beth thinks we can do some 10 mile days. So we will only need 3 days of food until our next resupply. We will bring 4 days just in case.

Before bed we went through all our left over food from the last leg and tossed a lot of it out. But Beth couldn't part with the tootsie rolls and butter mints, so we kept those.

We read a bit and went to bed at 9:15.