August 15

Unlike the previous entries, this entry and the following were written about 7 months after our trip.

We were up early this morning because we had long day. We were thinking of staying at Cooper Lodge which was about 10 miles away. This was our second to last day and our hardest since not only was it 10 miles, but it was climbing Killington Mountain. We decided to use up our last pair of clean socks.

Beth soon regretted her decision. She slipped crossing a brook and her foot slipped in - so much for dry socks. We ate lunch at Governor Clement Shelter. It was a really dismal and dirty shelter and we were glad not to be staying there. In the shelter resister I found a note from Patches to me. He was calling me Blue Sky so maybe I'll keep that name.

But our first half of the day was the easy part. After the shelter the trail started going up. And up. And up. We took it slow, and had a good rest break at a small creek. But finally we made it to the top. Well not really the top but to Cooper Lodge which is about 1/4 mile from the top.

We dropped our packs and went up and over the mountain to the ski lodge. In the summer it serves all the tourists by way of the gondola, which was nice for us since we could get some overpriced hamburgers and hotdogs. And Beth of course got ice cream. Since there was a phone I called Joel and told him we would be out tomorrow. I would rent a car in Rutland and drive home.

When we got back to Cooper Lodge we decided that we didn't like it and we went down to the next shelter on the old AT, not the new relocation. It was the first time at a shelter all by ourselves. It was totally enclosed and had a door too keep out the persistent porcupines. The place was also mice infested. Now the other shelters all had mice, but these mice were noisier.

This was a really hard day for us 13 miles up and over Killington. We were both exhausted and went to sleep listening to the scuttling of the mice.