journey's end

to fill in the final details:

the evening in johnson was filled with an open mic concert out in the town park, complete with a town drunkard's rendition of "rockin' robin" and highschool death metal garage band.

we hitched in the dark back out to the trail, and walked up a road about a mile to prospect rock, which apparently was a cool spot to the locals, since there were "no camping" and "no partying" signs up everywhere, tho honestly i was nonplussed. we camped there, because it was late and it was going to rain.

eventually we made it to the road crossing for eden, vt, which is a town made of a general store and a highway. there is an rv campground not far up the road, that let us set up a tent, take showers, and do laundry all for a total of $20, which is pretty good. the owner was a very nice woman who just happened to be a little crazy, also. she gave us a ride back to the trail the next morning, and was very firm in letting us know that we were about to hike the MOST difficult part of the entire long trail (the 10 miles between eden and hazen's notch, over belvidere mtn), and that we should be aware that it would take us no less than 2 full days, and that should we find it too hard we could take this or this blue blaze to a road with people where we could call her and she would come pick us up. oh, and also, if it rained she wouldn't let us leave her campground.

so we crossed our fingers that it wouldn't rain, since obviously we didnt want to have that argument, and made it to hazen's notch by 1pm the next day (after about 4 hrs of hiking). perhaps because of her goading, or perhaps because we were just ready for real showers and cotton clothes, we decided the last 30 miles, which we planned to hike in 3 days, were definitely going to be a 2 day hike.

and so on saturday we embarked on an 18 mile sprint to the finish, up and over jay peak (which may have actually been the hardest climb on the whole long trail), where we unexpectedly encountered bathrooms with running water and had a washing and drying party of unsurpassed awesomeness. and after hauling through several 3+mph miles, at less than 1/4 mile from the finish, on a slab of algae coverered wet rock, in downpouring rain, my feet decided they didn't want to be under me anymore and the next thing i knew my head had collided with something that was decidedly not air. john was terrified, i didn't really know what had happened, but apparently i was bleeding from my head (just above my left eye) and my hip was pretty messed up as well.

so after getting cleaned up, i hobbled to the finish, we took some mediocre 'summit' photos, and then limped the last .6mi to journey's end camp, where we cooked dinner and went to bed.

then what should have been an epic hitch-hiking journey began, but instead, we got a first car hitch with another hiker back to his car (about 20 miles south on the trail in hazen's notch), and he drove us nearly the entire length of the state of vermont back south to bennington.

and then we got a 3rd car hitch to my parent's house and now i'm getting kicked off the computer.

but we're home and neither of us are dead! hurrah!