Day 153

Weather:
Sunny and humid. No rain.

Today's Hike:
Manchester Center, VT to Big Branch Shelter - 16.5 miles

Even on good weather days life unfolds in ways to make you change your plans. Today's life event was a series of bee attacks aimed at a group of 14 girls out with a summer camp program.

It was late in the day; we were about 15 miles into our hike, and I was hiking alone (Muster and Rocker were somewhere ahead and Storm and Grommet were somewhere behind me) when I passed several backpacks along the side of the trail. The owners of the packs were no where to be found, food and water bottles were left carelessly thrown about. It was obvious by the types of packs and visible equipment that the bags probably belonged to some type of youth group. Odd and a little creepy. I continued forward and in another 0.5 miles I passed another line of unattended packs similar to the ones I just past. Something wasn't right, and the nerve racking part was I had no idea what it was. Still, all I could do was move forward, carefully.

About another .75 miles down the trail I came to a youth group and in the midst of them was Muster, Rocket and Lil’ Dipper. They informed me that a girl in the youth group was stung several times by bees, and she was having a severe allergic reaction. The counselor was on the phone with 911, and Muster and Early Bear where working on carrying the girl 4 miles to the road. The rest of us dropped our packs and went back to help grab the backpacks left a mile up the trail. Several hours later we had retrieved all the packs, the girl was on her way to the hospital, and we were now working with the group to get the extra backpacks to the van. Our evening ended at 10:30pm. We hadn't eaten since lunch. We set up camp 3.5 miles short of our planned destination, ate dinner, and went to sleep.

What a day. Despite the turn of events late in the evening, our morning was spectacular. We had our first moose sighting, and it was literally breath taking. Muster and Rocket were hiking at the head of the group, I was about 10 minutes behind them, and Storm and Grommet were about 15 minutes behind me (notice a pattern). I rounded the bend and stepped out from the woods onto a ski path .3 miles from the summit of Bromely Mountain. The final climb to the summit was steep and the morning sun was blaring down in my face, so I continued to dig in and hike with my head down. As I rounded the corner I looked up to gain my bearings only to see a giant moose about 150 yards in front of me. I froze. I had no idea what to do. He stared at me, and I stared at him. I stood and watched for awhile in amazement. You know a moose is big, but until you actually see one with your own eyes its hard to comprehend just how big they are. They're massive, and this one was only a juvenile. Picture the biggest deer you've ever seen and then imagine if it were four times bigger. That's what it was like looking at this guy. I'm willing to bet that I could almost walk under him. I could definitely do the limbo under him with out falling! After a few minutes of watching him he started walking toward me down the trail. I had now where to go but turn back from where I came, so I turned and ran back down the trail and caught up with Storm and Grommet. Once we were together we preceded forward and took our time until the moose passed back into the woods. Way to cool.