The car ride to Vermont was a great way to start our weekend hike. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. We stopped at Burger King on the way for food, which was excellent! I ordered a tasty cheeseburger and strawberry shake, which cost no more than $3, what a deal! Joey Dunn enjoyed a nice bucket of chicken fries, which I had never heard of before.
One hour later, we arrived at the parking lot where we would spend the night. As daylight was already slipping through our fingers, we set up our tarps and sleeping sacs immediately. While I was rolling out my sleeping bag, I imagined a fellow hiker pulling into this parking lot and seeing a bunch of people sleeping. Boy, would that be a shocker. Luckily, no such thing happened and after camp was secured we engaged in a competitive game of midnight frisbee (with a glowing frisbee, of course) in which much fun was had.
The next morning, we set out on the trail with an attitude to climb a mountain. Once we conquered the mountain we sat and rested for a while, climbing the watch tower and tossing the frisbee around. After we were restored, we took a side hike to the chairlifts, which looked righteous when not covered in snow!!! Returning to the trail, we continued our crusade (now going down the mountain) to our campsite. Now downhill, the trip was much easier. On the way we saw literally thousands of moose feces, which was needless to say smelly. As we drew nearer to the campsite, everyone was sore, tired and eager to kick back. I thought it was the best thing ever when we got to the campsite... until the curse of the black flies descended upon us.
I was unable to count the amount of black flies there, partly because they flew in seemingly random patterns, but mostly because there were just too many to count. The bugs got to the point where we grew to hate them. Nick Carabillo even said "I wish these bugs would all drop dead". And I agreed with him! The next day we made the decision to morph 2 more days of hiking into one day of MEGA HIKING, as the prospect of dealing with another day of the black flies was simply too much.
On the way, we stopped at what would have been our campsite for lunch, and I could not have been more happy that we weren't staying for the night, as there were about twice as many black flies here as there were in our previous one. I am not quite sure how i knew this, because I was still unable to count the amount of flies. 5 miles later, we emerged on the road bitten, blistered, beaten, battered, and other adjectives that begin with the letter "B".
To sum things up, everyone had fun on the trip, despite the bloodthirsty bugs which tried to bring our spirits down.
Submitted by Drew Veltrop
Check out 575 photos from the trip in the Troop Photo Library.
