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.