Day 126
It was tough to leave the Inn at Long Trail, but alas, we must hike! We had a huge breakfast, which was included in the price of our hotel room, consisting of blueberry pancakes with Vermont maple syrup. We were so full and happy! We got an easy hitch back down to the Rutland trail junction and set off up a gentle hill to Maine Junction, which is where The Long Trail and AT go their separate ways. We passed Huff and Puff and headed on to the trail junction with Killington. After misreading our book, taking the wrong side trail, and wasting 40 minutes of our day, we finally got to Kent Pond and the CORRECT side trail junction to the outfitters. We ran up and did a short resupply, got lunch, and I mailed some stuff home. We hung out with Mad Hat for a few hours to beat the afternoon heat before heading back out to conquer Quimby Mountain. We ran into some great trail magic (oranges and bananas!) at the trail reroute at River Road. While we were filling our water, Secrets and Shenanigans showed up. They had taken the old trail and said it was in bad shape from the hurricane. We all headed up the mountain and man was it a tough climb. Over 1100 feet in a mile, our biggest climb in a while! We had three other small, but no less steep, climbs from the top of this hill too before we got some downhill. The downhill was well-graded and had beautiful step work! We reached the Stony Brook shelter in 2 hours and met a SOBO there, a female going solo named Owl. We hung out for a while and Secrets, Shenanigans, and Shaggy all showed up soon after. It was an awesome night for all of us with a great fire. Today’s photo is the sign at Maine Junction.