Slack packing is a wonderful thing. We got to slack pack about 18 of the 22 miles that we covered today, thanks to Bear Bell’s mom. It was a great section to hike without a pack too, as there were a lot of very steep climbs.
The day began with a nice breakfast at the Inn at Long Trail. That was a good base for the full day of hiking ahead. We headed back out to Stony Brook Road, that back woods dirt road where we probably would’ve been better off with a truck. Bear Bell’s mom dropped us off, and we were gone by 9:30. About 13 miles later, we rejoined at VT route 12 where her mom was chatting with a few hikers. She had been doing a bit more trail magic as she waited for us. We ate some food ourselves, and decided it would be nice to do another 6 miles without our full packs. We toyed with the idea of slacking all the way to West Hartford, but we ended meeting up with Bear Bell’s mom at Cloudland road.
Just about .2 miles north of the trail head on Cloudland road is a place called Cloudland farm and market. We headed up there and got a pint of ice cream, and a couple sandwiches. Bear Bell and I split the pint while her mom ate a sandwich. This farm and market were in just a beautiful Vermont setting, on a country road surrounded by hills. It was tough to walk away.
We finally parted ways with Bear Bell’s mom. Much thanks to Bear Bell’s mom once again for helping us out the past few days. We really enjoyed hanging out, and hope she enjoyed meeting a few other hikers. We hiked about little over 3 more miles in, just past Joe Ranger Road, and found a little flat spot out in the woods. We set up camp, ate our packed in sandwiches, and climbed into bed.
This will be our last night outside for about a week. We’ll still be hiking, but we’ll be mostly slack packing and taking a few zero days over the next week. I’ll continue to write about our hiking days, but as usual, I’ll probably combine all the zero days into a single post. We’re looking forward to a bit of rest before the last big push to Kathadin.
