Sunday, August 26, 2018
Start: Jay Camp
End: Tiltson Camp
Mileage: 11.7 on LT (+0.2 from shelter)
Elevation gain/loss: 4,193’/3,878′
After a nice evening with food and nice chats, we had a middling night sleep. Towanda has a cold so she didn’t sleep well, and there was a mouse burrowing around at night, which was distracting. We were awake by 6:30am, and left the shelter a bit before 7:30am.
We descended to the VT 242 and then climbed over Gilpin Mountain, Domey’s Dome, and up to Chet’s Lookout. We took a half-hour break there, chatting with a group of older NOBO section hikers, and then pushed onward. We climbed over Buchanan Mountain and Bruce Peak before descending to Hazen’s Notch Camp for more water and lunch.
We took an hour break and then headed down to VT 58. We crossed the dirt road and then started climbing. It was a climb of over 2,500 feet up to Haystack Mountain, and the terrain was pretty brutal. The ~2 miles took us maybe 2 hours; it also rained for half an hour as we were hiking up and over, which made it that much more challenging and soaked our clothes in the process. After Haystack, we had one last climb to hike over Tillotson Peak to finally arrive at Tillotson Camp.
Here at Tillotson, we found two other SOBO hikers, a father/son team. The son is going to thru-hike the LT, while his dad is along for the first part of the trail. We had a nice dinner and some casual conversations.
Towanda’s knee is still bothering her, perhaps more than yesterday. It’s started to cause pain, particularly on the downhill sections. I provided her with some cough expectorant, ibuprofen, and an ace bandage to wrap around her knee.
Transcending Mountains 