Only four days separate me from the trail. This year hasn’t been favourable for hiking, however, next week will be spent entirely on the trails of Vermont.
First we’ll head up to Smuggler’s Notch State Park where we’ll be right on the Long Trail and minutes away from Stowe, VT. Later in the week, we’ll head down to Gifford Woods State Park where we’ll have the Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail at our doorstep.
What makes this a new experience, is the camping. I’ve done lots of day hikes in the last few years, and when we were in England, we had two weeks of continuous hiking. But I haven’t been camping — really camping — in more than a decade. Yes, I camped across the country on my sabbatical, but that was different. I never cooked: I had cereal in the morning (usually at a rest stop on the road), a sandwich at lunch (usually at a park or at my daily destination — I never drove more than 4 hours), and I went to a local restaurant for dinner. Sometimes my choices for dinner were pretty slim and I’d wish I had equipment to cook, but that’s the breaks.
Now we have lots of gear, but of course, probably half the gear is the wrong gear. But we’ll get a chance to find out for certain next week…
Expect a report.
Well, it is the way some people do it. Obviously, I haven’t got the knack for camping cheaply: Anna helped me rack up a $420 total bill at REI yesterday picking up gear for our upcoming trip to Vermont.
Nothing we purchased was really expensive. No $300 tents. No $150 soft-shell jackets. But somehow it all added up to a staggering sum.
We bought one of those ultra-cool Jetboil personal stoves. Of course, we couldn’t forget a fuel canister. And a stabiliser and pot-adapter. Now we can try out some of the really cool (and some really weird) recipes on the Jetboil Web site. When the food is done, we can serve it on our Lexan plates, or in our Lexan bowls, and drink something from our Lexan cups. Woo hoo! for Lexan: it’s light weight and blue.
Also adding to the shocking bottom line were several shirts, a couple pairs of pants, and some miscellaneous stuff. Nothing outrageous mind you, just not free.
Of course, this now gives me a really good excuse to go camping this summer and autumn — got to make use of all the stuff we bought!
The last time Anna and I attempted the ascent onto the South Taconic trail, it all ended in tears. Anna’s tears specifically. It was early last summer and she really wasn’t in good enough shape to climb such a steep hill in somewhat warm weather.
Yesterday, after visiting with Anna’s family, we returned to the South Taconic trail. Ideally, I’d hoped we could hike for about 5 to 7 miles. However, I was a little apprehensive about asking Anna to re-attempt the ascent that not only defeated her, but made her cry. I told her to set the pace and to stop and rest whenever she needed. It was slow going — and she needed a Luna bar about half way up (it was about 1.30 PM and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 9:30 AM) — but she made it all the way to the top of Bash Bish Mountain.
Once at the top, however, she declared that her hiking escapades were complete for the day and asked whether there was a less steep descent we could use. The only other descent that would have brought us back to the parking lot where we’d left the Miata was the blue trail, which crosses the stream above Bash Bish falls. The blue trail isn’t as rocky and steep but it is still pretty steep.
While the blue trail isn’t as clearly blazed as the white, South Taconic trail, we never really lost our way — we did have to scan around a few times to locate the next blue blaze. Anna didn’t enjoy the fantastic view from the overlooks along the trail, but she did manage to descend without too much difficulty.
And she did all of this while 16 weeks pregnant.
