September 30, 2007
Spruce Ledge Camp to Roundtop Shelter
LT Miles – 14.7
Total LT Miles – 47.4
Extra Miles – 0

My morning view – this is Devil’s Perch Outlook – only a few steps from Spruce Ledge Camp. It looks to the north, with Ritterbush Pond in the foreground, and Belvidere Mountain in the background – where I stood on the fire tower yesterday. I’m slow to rise and pack this morning. Most of the weekenders leave the shelter area before me.

I take my time, fill up with untreated water from the spring, and hope for the best. I can’t help but drink floating bits of dirt and leaves that crunch in my teeth. Scooby snacks.

Spruce Ledge Camp

In contrast to yesterday, the path feels deserted on this Sunday morning. All the weekend hikers must have turned back north to the nearest road.

The first six miles consists of a relatively flat ridge-walk – something I’m completely unaccustomed to on this trail. It’s a breezy, peaceful, sun-splattered morning, and an excellent autumn hike.
Today is my twenty-seventh birthday.

I meet Slacker, a spunky lady that’s slack-packing this section, as is to be expected according to her trail name (Slack-packing is when a backpacker on an extended trip leaves their heavy backpack in town, and day-hikes from road to road).

She has a glint in her eye that tells me she’s thoroughly enjoying this morning’s walk.

I stop for a break at a random spot in the forest, and pull out a card my mother gave me to open on my birthday. It’s a Hallmark card with a small speaker inside that plays a snippet of “The Italian Symphony.” I find it to be fitting music for being in the woods.

The occasional thick, sprawling trees whisper about how they were spared years ago when this land was logged – perhaps for homesteads, grazing… I’ll never know.

The trail descends to Corliss Camp.

At Corliss Camp I come upon three young men sitting side by side on a bench, facing the fire ring with their backs toward me, eating lunch. They sit close to one another, laugh, and joke – causing me miss the camaraderie of my old AT friends. They have a group trail name – The Professionals – and have hiked northbound from Massachusetts.

I take a lunch break as well, and we discuss the comings and goings of the trail – hikers I’ve seen going north, hikers they’ve seen going south, and the conditions of shelters and water sources in both directions. I ask about the services in town – Johnson – where I’ll be resupplying tomorrow. The bar comes highly recommended, and reinforced by this trio.

We chat it up with a weekend hiker – he tells a relevant anecdote from his hike on The Arizona Trail. “This one day I was awfully dehydrated,” he says, “And chugged this terrible looking water from a cache. About a week later, I’m hiking along one day, and I remember feeling so worn out that I thought it would be a good idea to get in my sleeping bag and rest immediately. I crapped my pants in my sleep!”

Ah, Giardia, every backpacker’s favorite water-borne illness.

I sip my untreated water, and crunch on a little dirt.

The path steeply ascends from Corliss Camp, and leads up Laraway Mountain. The trail distinctly reminds me of Maine and New Hampshire on this beautiful day.

I suddenly step out on a stony vista.

I have the location all to myself for only for a moment before a man, his son, and his son’s fiancé appear out of the woods. The older gentleman is well ahead of the younger ones – he’s a former Long Trail end-to-ender.

We listen as the area plays host to a whole flock of unruly, noisy ravens.

I descend along the base of some impressive cliffs. Water drips down on me from above – a result of all the recent rain.

At the base of Laraway mountain there’s a place called Codding Hollow. It is home to an aged, rusted automobile, a hushed forest where the trees resemble matchsticks, and an old stone wall. All of this lends to a mysterious, haunting twilight aura.

Just look at that conspicuous white rock.

Maybe this where Vermont prison inmates who serve life sentences for killing their wives when they’re really not guilty, but just innocent accountants who go to jail and make friends with “guys who can get you things” hide their buried treasure after they escape?

I should start digging. After all, it is my birthday.

I cross Plot Road, and enter a peaceful meadow with a wide view to the sky.

Now I make double time in the gathering dark, one more mile uphill to Roundtop Shelter.

Directly behind the vacant shelter lies this view to the west. I cook a solitary dinner by the light of my headlamp, read over the register, and go to sleep.