We woke to rain, albeit, lighter than it was the past day. By 8 am, we were hiking and wet. Keeping feet dry was impossible as the trail was a stream in most places, knee deep in some. I would walk through the thick mud and stop in the clear stream sections to rinse. This behaviour I repeated all day.
We travelled 11 km this day, starting with almost 300 metres up Butternut Mountain. A long descent ended at a creek and a 200 metre climb to Spruce Ledge Camp. Spruce Ledge was a hybrid cabin, a shelter really with barn doors closing the front. It had two shelves of bunks, sleeping 8, 12 if you really packed them in. We arrived early in the afternoon and ate lunch at a covered picnic table. We spent the afternoon playing Farkle.
Dale
Dale and his son Jarrett arrived in late afternoon at Spruce Ledge Camp for the night. They were just out for two days of hiking. Jarrett lives and works in this area of Vermont, but Dale moved to Florida. They had never been to this location before.
Josh
Josh is a southbound (SOBO) thruhiker from Boston. He starts a new job in four weeks, leaving him just enough time to thruhike the Long Trail. This was his third night out. He was taking notes on his freeze dried meals for future reference. He thought the Pad Thai was good, but easy to reproduce with ramen, some hot sauce, and peanut butter. He’ll make his own version next time.