Appalachian Trail (day 69) - Congdon Shelter to Black Brook / mile 1639

Fairly demanding day with tough terrain and elevation gain.

Lucy, the German shepherd was surprisingly well behaved over night but mosquitoes and black fly's were not, I could hear constant buzzing around my head and I was regretting that I didn't set up a tent.

First on the menu was a ten mile long, steady climb to Glastenbury Mountain, terrain was rocky and muddy, I had to jump over the puddles or find a walk around the bigger ones. Tree roots were also very prevalent, it took a lot of energy to complete that section.

Second part of the day was easier, climbs were shorter but the terrain did not improve much. There were few more beaver ponds along the way and I could see their beautiful lodges among the wetlands they produced, those sections were usually board walks as the trail was pretty much submerged.

I have only seen five day hikers and five what I've assumed were Long Trail hikers (they were way too clean to be AT hikers). Weather was very good the entire day, sunny with occasional cloud rolling through the sky. There was way less animals in Vermont, I haven't seen a single squirrel or chipmunk, birds were also suspiciously quiet. I think I've entered slightly different ecosystem. The only animal I've seen today worth noting was a deer with two fawns, they still had their dotted, "camouflage" pattern so they were quite young, they got scarred and ran away, momma was huffing and puffing at me from the distance.

I've arrived at the campsite before 7 PM, very tired. Everything was falling out from my hands, I couldn't set up tent properly, I've spilled ramen bomb soup inside the tent and had to clean up the mess. Mosquitoes and black fly's would not leave me alone for a second.

I've hanged the food, washed my feet, shoes and socks in the brook as they were all muddy from misjudged rock jumps. I made a rough plan of action for tomorrow and went to sleep.

A little mole came scouting around just before I closed the tent, I thought it was funny, I made this quite bad picture of it before it ran away.