Day 128. Although I technically hiked 3 miles today along the Carlo Col Trail to the Success Pond Rd, those don’t count towards my AT completion. Since my total miles (that count) are zero, I guess today was a Zero Day. But that’s just fine, as we typically have a day of goody town hijinks on our adventure trips anyway.

We woke up this morning to the anticipated rain and thunder around 5am. It didn’t last too long though, clearing up around 10am. We arranged a shuttle to get us at noon and then headed down the blue blaze trail. However, after a few hours of rain, it was completely different than what Max and I recalled from our reconnaissance walk the day before. This trail follows a creek downward, and the lower we got, the faster flowing and river-like it became. Where we never had to cross anything under water before, we now had multiple areas that forced us into ankle high water. It’s amazing how quickly the creeks rise here! No leisurely stepping over rocks this time, instead we had to ford the river in a half-dozen places (photo above).

The trailhead empties out on an old logging road, barely accessible by car and not heavily maintained. It had gravel paving, but not much. The shuttle was able to get through to us, but we had a slow commute back to the Rattle River Hostel, with lots of pothole swerving and off-road-like maneuvering. It was fun, and tomorrow I’ll need to take it again to get dropped back to where I left off.

We were back by 1pm, so we went to explore the town for the rest of our day. This provided us with a great lunch from a BBQ food truck, a round of made-up frisbee golf, a round of real miniature golf, and dinner at an amazing restaurant. Saalt is its name, and it is incredible. The head chef (Liz) trained under Julia Child, and has a menu that is truly Michelin restaurant worthy. I will never be back here again, but that 40-ingredient lasagna is almost worth returning. Yum!

After dinner we went back to the hostel and played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, hung out with the other hikers, organized gear for our early morning departure tomorrow, and then crashed. These guys are flying home tomorrow, so they won’t be able to hike the Mahoosic Notch and Arm like planned … but I don’t think that bothers them too much. We had a great time hiking what we did together, and I’m once again reenergized to keep on and reach the end. Almost there!

Hello Neiman (Sharkbait)!

• Start Mile: 1909.6
• Start Time: 10:00
• End Mile: 1909.6
• End Time: 12:00
• Miles Hiked: 0.0 (+3.0)
• Miles to Go: 281.3
• Lodging: Rattle River Hostel