On the AT - West Hartford to Connecticut River, VT/NH line

April 29, 2007 | Miles: 9.3
Start: VT 14, West Hartford
End: Connecticut River, VT/NH border
Danielle:
A “cloudy bright” day on the trail, with scattered showers.
The day managed to be better weather-wise than the soggy drive over would have indicated, which was good! Ryan was ready for mutiny when I woke him up at 6:00am, and a super rainy, muddy day on the trail wouldn’t have made things any better! We parked our car in Hanover, and Steve from Apex Shuttles picked us up to take us to the start in West Hartford. What a nice guy, and even better that we didn’t have to drive two cars over.
The trail was nice and mellow, winding through the open woods of Vermont, and relatively dry. The hillsides were starting to come alive with the spring wildflowers—rue anemone, trout lilies and trillium just starting to bud, yellow violets—and with wildlife as well. We saw several turkeys, a woodpecker, chickadees and nuthatches, my first two salamanders of the season (OK, they're really red efts), as well as a big owl silently gliding by. Very cool. We had lunch at Happy Hill Shelter (what a great name!) and continued our wander through the woods, finally ending with a road walk through Norwich, VT, under I-91 and back to the car. A quick hike too—6 hours of driving for 4 hours of hiking :-) But another good day on the trail… it’s good to be out!

Ryan:
Misty, drizzly, seemed like it wanted to clear.
Brief synopsis: Misty, cloudy day. Mellow hike, couple minor ups and downs. Lots of bird and flower sections, which I’m sure Danielle has chronicled. Overall: a great day.
Few more details: Section hiking is kind of a pain. It’s so much easier to keep heading north…guess I shouldn’t have hurt my back in ’05. But there are plenty of great folks out there who can help with rides. So, only one car today, and one ride.
Other than that, my knee felt pretty good today. It didn’t feel good all week, so I was pretty skeptical. But it held up great. It only seems to hurt walking on flat. Who knows? More stretching and more exercises during the week, so Danielle can continue her quest to kill me.