Appalachian Trail (day 73) - Churchill Scott Shelter to Woodstock / mile 1733

"I'm going to JoJo the AT and I will start with only ten items" Snail

"The state's name "Vermont" was derived from the french "Ver'Mont", meaning "Green Mountain" Information Board

Today was the day of my favourite human encounters and not one but two!

In the morning I've pushed for five miles to Killington where I was planning to have a breakfast. Half way through the 100 miles of Appalachian Trail overlapping with Long Trail was over and they both went their separate ways. I'm strongly considering coming back here and finishing hiking Long Trail if time allows, it would be great to arrive at the Canadian border again and finish this trail which was an inspiration for the AT.

Deli at the Killington was opened and after a fifteen minute walk from trail I've ordered "Killington's Best Breakfast Sandwich" (with steak, egg and cheese), coffee and an apple fritter. It was all good calories and gave me very much needed nutrition for the rest of this fairly long and demanding day.

Half an hour later I was back on trail, a guy went past me, he reminded me of someone so I asked what his trail name was and it was Snail! The same "Snails stay on trail" guy I've seen back at the end of Smokey Mountains section, he grew a beard since then that's why I couldn't recognize him, he didn't recognize me either. I was so happy to see him, he was clearly speeding up and turning into a proper hiker trash along the way. He announced that he wants to do a JoJo meaning once he will arrive at Kathadin he will start walking back to Georgia, essentially doing the trail twice. Absolute madness but I could hear and see his determination, he was really up for it.

I've hiked with him for few hours, we also started to leap frog with another hippie looking girl, Snail told me that she was only section hiking. At some point he stopped to have a wash in the stream (just like he did last time I saw him) and I haven't seen him for the rest of the day.


I kept on going back and forth with that other girl though, she was clearly an experienced hiker so I started asking her questions of what hikes she did and what her trail name was (initially she said that her name was Heather). After a "thorough investigation" as Heather turned out to be a very reserved person, clearly not interested in sharing her identity but very chilled and inteligent on the other hand, I've managed to piece out that her full name was Heather "Anish" Anderson, the only American female triple triple crowner and National Geographic's Adventurer of the Year. Heather wrote several books and crushed few trail records, for example she hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 54 days! Throughout the day I've shared the trail angel list in Hanover area I got from Jeff in Manchester with her and tried to give her a trail name as I thought she was a section hiker, which is quite funny in hindsight. I came up with "Power Flower" pretty decent trail name if you ask me!

I've seen Heather last time just before my final climb for the day but since she was renowned for her night hiking I wasn't expecting to see her again tomorrow. I've set up my tent at an unmarked campsite about 20 miles away from Hanover at which I was planning to stay tomorrow evening. It was a good, memorable day.

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