Day 2 on the Vermont Long Trail

Our bag was hung from a tree limb about 9 ft off the ground last night. Our bag was still attacked by either mice or chipmunks. We were lucky and only lost a few of the meal bars. We have a big hole in our bag now though. We did not hit the trail until around 8:45 today. The plan was a short day of only 5.6 miles. The terrain started off going down the mountain, which sounds good but for those of you that know hiking, down the mountain is sometimes as hard as going up the mountain! The trail had large rocks and roots that we had to climb over and down. This continued for about 1.5 miles. We finally reached the bottom and crossed the road into a parking lot.

The river was very close, we could here it and it was so peaceful. We walked about .2 up the trail and found an opening that we could climb down to the river. We filled our water bottles, ate some protein bars, and the kids climbed all over the fallen trees over the water. I will be posting those videos. I sat on the rock with my shoes off, the sun felt so good on my feet. We decided after about an hour, we had to move on. We walked across a bridge and then the rest of the hike was all increasing in elevation. It was a tough hike. Tiny Turtle was asking for a break about every 5 minutes but we would just get him talking about something like volcanoes and he would press on. We did take a break at a rock that looked perfectly split in two parts. We all thought of the part on Finding Nemo when Dori wants to go through the trench and Marlin wants to go over it and they end up in the jelly fish. The rock looked just like that! The family climbed all over the rocks. It was a blast.

When we headed back on the trail it was more inclining. We finally reached Melville Nauheim Shelter. The shelters are 3 sided huts basically. Some shelters have wooden bunks usually 4 and some just have a big platform. This shelter had the 4 wooden bunks. It wasn’t a bad shelter. We decided to stay in the shelter tonight instead of sitting up the tents. Rain was supposed to be coming in. We met Shaggy, which is another hiker on the LT. He is a middle school teacher and Tiny Turtle just loved him. Not long after we were there, the hikers we met the previous day (Baby Chicken, OD, Gunho, and Dabba Do) showed up! Tiny Turtle was super excited. OD had a couple frisbees they played with. Then Dabba Do, OD, and Tiny Turtle built a fire. Tiny Turtle likes to blow on the fire. Sleeping in the shelter was a different experience. Shelters have mice! You have to hang your food, which the trick is to stick a bottle between the bear bag and the rope and they can’t climb down it! That is another piece of advice you learn on the trail! Also bring ear plugs if you are a light sleeper like me and try to stay in a shelter! People snore, move around, and even talk in their sleep.