LT Trip Report (Manchester)

“Here is the trip report for our Long Trail/AT trip last week.

Sunday -9/2 - Started at Mad Tom Notch Road. Had heard that there were many car break-in's in the area, and were somewhat worried about leaving the vehicles (it all turned out OK though). Had some great views at Styles Peak. Hiked into Griffith Lake and set up camp for the night. They charged $5 to camp for the night, which I turned into a civilized debate with Marge, the caretaker of the campground. Griffith Lake was really beautiful, and known to be an area for moose sightings according to Marge. I woke up at the crack of dawn the next day to search for moose, and check out the sunrise.

Monday - 9/3 - By far the most humerous day. The plan was to take trail from Griffith Lake to a shelter 6 miles away, but plans change. The climb to Baker's Peak was sweet, however, a storm was rolling in, so the views were limited. I found out it was bear hunting season in the Greens, so I used my black Columbia fleece vest sparingly. lol. After Bakers Peak, the downpour came, soaking us to the bone. We rolled in to our designated shelter at about 3:00, and found a supposed thru-hiker named J the A at the shelter. This guy smelled like sh!t, and immediately bummed a smoke off me. He said that he'd hiked 20 miles that day, and 20 the day before. I asked a few questions, like when he started (June 15th), and what direction he was heading (south), and immediately knew that the guy was a lying piker. When he said, with a big ole' smile on his face that he was staying at the shlater for the night, we pushed on to the next shelter at Little Rock Pond. The hike was beautiful, because the rain had stopped.

Tueday - 9/4 I woke at the crack of dawn to try to spot some moose as the rest in my party slept. I saw many tracks, yet no moose, but was treated to a spectacular sunrise. Our destination for the day was White Rocks (about 6 miles, with some decent inclines. Thanks to Steiny, we checked into which shelters had no water, and found that the White Rocks shelter was dry, so we loaded up on the H2O. I decided to hike at my pace, leaving the group about 1/2 hour behind as I reached a peak about 2 miles south or White Rocks. There, I found two older gentleman who were doing some trail maintenance. It turns out, one of the guys was a huge baseball fan. He filled me in on the happenings of the past week as we both ate our lunches. He also gave me some nice tips for our upcoming Cooperstown visit. It was truely one of those "unexpected" treats on the trail. The group caught up and we hiked down a a decent decsent through a large pine grove to White Rocks. There was some sort of Blair Witch thing going on, because there was about 50 piles of rocks neatly stacked at the trail crossings. It looked pretty cool. We roled into the shleter at 3:30, and set up camp. We only had two miles to go to the car the next day, before we headed to Copperstown. I had a great idea to run into town, pick up some beer and wine and pack it back in, so we could have some livations for the evening. Prarie Dog Dave and I hiked down over 1,200 feet of elevvation in 1.3 miles, the hike back up burned the legs, but was well worth it, as we sipped wine and drank beers that evening.

Wednesday - 9/5 - Hiked out at 8:00 am, and headed to Cooperstown.

I would have liked to hiked more, but some folks in the gruop had to get back home early. All in all it was a great trip, and I'll be posting pics in the near future!”

“Dude, glad you had a great trip!!!!!!

thanks for the pictures too!”

“Nice Pics, BB”

“NIce stuff Buddha Bear...... wait!!!!! Or are you Pale Rider?? And do you think the aliens left an implant up your..... errrrrr... well do you think??? LOL”