With the day dawning very cloudy and a steady drizzle @0600, the phone began ringing with a few cancellations: “who wants to hike in the rain”, “I think I’m gonna bag this one.” It ended up being only the guys with the addition of Sheri Larsen. As we met @ App Gap to place a car, the first glimpses of blue sky patches were appearing.
“hope Spring’s eternal in the human breast “, as the saying goes and indeed the weather improved to the tune of about 10 minutes worth of light rain as we came over Lincoln Peak. I’m getting ahead of myself.
We drove down to Lincoln Gap where Rich and Sheri Larsen, Peter Cottrell and Dick Petit joined us. Rich, Sheri and Peter were doing trail adopting duties and joined us to the summit of Abe. At this point there was full sun, light wind and modest views. At this point, the trailworking folks heading back south to lopper and do water-bar improvements. The group that continued north checked out the plane wreckage, which is oddly enough mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” how’s that for a blast of the past????
Proceeding North, we just enjoyed a moderate pace with regroupings every so often. Upon reaching Stark’s Nest, we encountered a group of 1/2 dozen Boy Scouts from Mass doing their last night. Having started @ Shelburne Pass, they wanted pizza badly and were planning to get some on Saturday when their friends met them. Nice kids and cool t-shirts which had the state of Vermont on the back with the LT section highlighted in red which they did this year.
They were very appreciative of having a nice dry place with expansive deck that Stark’s Nest provided. Since our hike started @ 0930 and the first of us arrived @ APP Gap @ 1730, it was truly a time for a little libation and crunchies. Long Trail’s “Double Bag” was the choice even though I brought some lemonade and Vt. Cider -duhhhhhh????
There were 6 of us, just enough for 1 German “Stickbier” per person. We enjoyed a few minutes quaffing and crunching there in the parking lot @ App Gap. As Sir Edmund Hilary so proudly stated as he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay summited Everest in 1953: “We knocked the bastard off.” Everyone had a great hike.
Total Distance: 13.2 miles.
Participants – Al Baker, Phil Howard, Russ Kinaman, Dave Ruschitto, Dick Petit, Rich Larsen, Sheri Larsen, Peter Cottrell, Pete Saile
