My plan had been to get up and over Mount Mansfield today, but after seeing lightning actually strike the ridge yesterday -- and today, my phone says there is a 100% chance of thunderstorms by the mid-afternoon -- I've decided to stop short at Taft Lodge and summit Vermont's highest peak the following morning (when it apparently will be wet but lightning-free).
My boots, at this point, are pretty much done. I'd hoped they'd last the Long Trail, but both boots are now split open on both sides -- passenger and driver-side "doors" hanging open, funnelling water and bog directly to my toes. I tape my boots up again, aware that the tape only lasts a few miles, and reduces my grip significantly.
I fill my water bottles from the pond. I'm sad to leave it.
These purple flowers pop up a lot near ski areas. I have no idea what they are.
It's slow going on wet boulders, mud and roots. I slip a couple of times, but have yet to really properly fall. In no way can I afford a broken ankle at this point; I'm extra cautious. Oh, and slow. We already established that.
It rains the whole way down into Smugglers' Notch.
I'm not cold, though, because of the effort. I've a wicking t-shirt and balloony red trousers that I'd assumed were waterproof (predictably, more on this assumption later...). The trail mostly tunnels through woods, so the rain isn't necessarily falling on me most of the time. As I walk, frogs leap for the safety of puddles. The smallest is the size of my fingernail, the largest the size of my fist.
During the steady and long descent to the Notch road, a tiny orange lizard-gecko creature is panicking. All fingers and toes, he's trying hard to get away from me, but slipping on the muddy trail. I stop, and say out loud: "Don't worry -- just choose where you're going and I'll go the other way". The lizard scuttles left, I step around to the right. Realise I've just attempted a conversation with a lizard.
My heightened creature-empathy means I don't take a photo of the big, beautiful frog I see while I ford the stream into the notch. The frog hops into the water, and swims away to hang onto a twig. It would be a good photo, but I can see the frog is stressed out -- I don't want to add to that. How very Buddhist.
In the soggy Notch I take a break, chew on some jerky and scoff my second Fruit'n'Nut of the day. Then there is nothing else to do but start the climb up to Taft Lodge. I sign into the LT south on the other side of the road, and tell myself "this will just be horrible for a while". The ascent was alright to start with; then the rain started pelting down, hard. I kept going, with the water troughing and stinging my eyes. By this time I was soaked (the red trousers proving water-resistant rather than waterproof) and it was too late to put on my waterproof jacket. At least the downpour stopped me from taking my usual oh-climbing-hills-is-hard breaks every few minutes. Higher up, the trail was awash -- basically, I was scaling boulders in the middle of a temporary stream. I got to a saturation point, boots full of water, and climbed upstream largely using my soggy knees for traction; the pack's weight pressed me down into the stream. The two miles up to Taft Lodge took me around three hours, a rather pathetic pace. Multiple times, the ascent went from awful to bearable to sort of dream-like. Climbing a river in a cold shower.
Then I'd arrived -- the rain stopped, I took off my boots and sock-ponds and my not-quite-waterproofs, and watched sun patches slide around the valley while different layers of clouds gathered and dispersed. The creamy clouds were disappearing into the grey clouds, and patches of grey were visibly being drawn upwards into the hovering grey blanket. It was sort of the opposite of watching for a tornado spout.
Taft Lodge is amazing. It's a log-cabin kind of thing, with a door that closes and loads of space. With only 5 people in the lodge including myself, I had a whole 6-person upper platform to myself -- the GMC caretaker referred to this as a "penthouse suite". I appreciated the space, and took over all the hooks in my quadrant, hanging up my soggy fabric with hopes it would dry by the morning. I turned on my phone, and dealt with a few booking enquiries for the autumn and spring. Hustling for gigs is a significant part of my work, and I'd worried about being away for the month. But it seems that booking can be like a wild dog -- sometimes you need to just walk away, and the dog will come to you. It's not necessary to be running towards the dog and yelling all the time. I don't have to be constantly pushing bookings 52 weeks of the year. I'm on a Zappa tribute show for early 2014. Yeah.
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