August 24-26: Rutland, Vermont

The mail drops I send every 5-10 days contain the meals that were so carefully planned, prepared and packaged based on their anticipated schedule, which we all know, never made it to reality. When the number of days hiking between mail drops does not match the number of days in their food supply drop, food becomes scarce. On Monday, 8/24, their food supply had dwindled down to dried fruit, and so by mid afternoon they were forced off the trail at Rutland, Vermont to resupply. After 4 days of rain, it was good to get off the trail and get things washed and dried out.

Rutland is an upscale little Vermont town with beautiful old homes and a hostel run by a religious group called The Twelve Tribes. They live communally with no personal income or wealth. They sustain their group with various businesses in town - a cafe, outfitters store and print shop. They are all hardworking, by choice, to benefit the group as a whole.

Hikers who stay in the hostel may make a donation or work for their stay. If one chooses to work, there is no set time; you contribute whatever time you choose to contribute. In return, hikers are fed two wonderful vegetarian meals a day at 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM. The meals are served family style in the cafe and consist of things like fruit, museli and french toast for breakfast and large salads, bread, veggies, couscous amd pasta for dinner. Our hikers chose to work for their stay and so they stayed and stayed and stayed. They have been working in the cafe - washing and chopping veggies, sweeping and mopping and washing windows. On Tuesday, they worked from after breakfast till afternoon, so they were also treated to a lunch of homemade soup and tofu wraps.

Monday evening, their first night at the hostel, the cafe was closed to the public for a tribal event called M night; M standing for music, merriment and mirth. All of the hikers were invited to join in and had a wonderfuil time. There was Israeli music and folk dancing and a large crowd of tribe members and hikers. The hostel has separate dorms for men and women as well as other areas for overflow. The men's dorm was full as well as an auxillary dorm and a deck area - all with men. The women's dorm had Madeline and another young lady, Lucky Star. This is a different crowd of hikers than what they have typically been around; mostly young men, late teens to mid-20's. Although Jonathan falls in this age range, he says he feels much older.

They took a very long time in the grocery store in Rutland to resupply for the approximate 4 days till they reach their next mail drop. This resupply experience made them appreciate the time and effort they put into preparing their food ahead of time. Many hikers rely solely on towns to resupply their food. They found it challenging to find the kind of healthy, vegetarian, easy to pack and travel with, quick to prepare, one pot kind of meal foods, but they managed to come up with an interesting selection, (whole wheat hot cereal, pasta, quinoa, canned parmesan, instant brown rice, packaged asian sauces, tortillas, peanut butter, honey, marshmallow fluff and peanut m&m's). For those of you who know the level of purity in food that is important to Jonathan, there are some departures from the norm here.

Jonathan, especially, has expressed this intense hunger he experiences all the time of late. He feels he can never get enough to eat. They have made two trips to the dairy for a pint of Ben & Jerry's icecream while in Rutland, and have no trouble consuming those extra 1,000 calories following a big meal. They went to a Chinese buffet for lunch Wednesday and ate their way through everything vegetarian they could find. Jonathan then returned to the hostel for a nap and Madeline went off to the movies. They have felt they needed this time in Rutland to just eat and rest (and work). Jonathan asked me to increase the olive oil in their maildrops. Perhaps if they cook with more added oil, it will increase his energy as it increases caloric intake.

Vermont is really beautiful - all lush and green. Moss thickly carpets every surface. Weather when it is not raining is warm and nights comfortable although there was one night atop Mt. Killington that was pretty chilly; the rainy days are cool. They were none too happy to have to tent in the rain one night when the shelter was full with a school group from a local college. Trail ettiquette implys that shelters are to be saved for thru-hikers, and not monopolized by groups. They have hiked of late with an older guy(40's) named Vendog and a younger kid named BamBam, who although nice and harmless, is very weird and a little crazy.

Jonathan says his favorite place thus far is called White Rock Mountain. Here, the larger trees of the Hemlock forest are dying but young ones are popping up everywhere. There were elaborate rock cairns that looked like something dating back to the ancient Druids. There was a sense of something magical and sacred here; he felt revitalized and renewed after a period of weakness and low energy.

They have seen large trees growing atop boulders, with big six inch thick roots stretching down around the boulders and into the ground. Though hard to comprehend how this growth pattern establishes itself, it looks really amazing. In rainy weather, there are red spotted newts all over the trail. They are everywhere, making it nearly impossible not to step on. As juveniles, these newts live in the forests; as adults, their coloring turns an olive green and they return to the ponds to reproduce. Though they have seen moose poo, they have not sighted a moose, although some other hikers have.

Madeline was lucky enough to find a pack rain cover in a hiker box to replace the one she lost. Hiker boxes are located in places hikers frequent. They are a place to share with other hikers. If you have supplies you don't need, or extra food, it is left in a hiker box for someone else's use. Jonathan purchased a lightweight rain suit in Rutland as his rain jacket was no longer proving to be waterproof; (it has already backpacked for months through PuertoRico and months through Ireland). Madeline lost her one and only eating utensil, a spork, awhile back but found a spoon somewhere along the way to replace it. Jonathan, who had taken a lightweight bamboo fork, spoon and knife set with him, had lost everything but the knife, which is what he has been using to eat with for some time now. He recently lost the knife too so they have had a spoon between them to share. Hiker, Dana, has now given him a titanium spork which she had originally brought with her to dig her potty holes but is no longer using. My hikers too have found a digging implement to be unneccessary. One's boot heel can work just as efficiently; so they mailed their trowel home several weeks ago with some other things they found to be nonessentials. Hikers constantly reevaluate their possessions; no point in carrying anything you can do nicely without.

Jonathan says he has learned to be more relaxed. While he used to feel driven to get up and get going quickly each morning, and would get impatient when Madeline lingered in her sleeping bag, that is no longer the case. He cares not if they have a liesurely start to their day. He says it is Madeline now who is the one who is usually packed up and ready to go first. She usually begins the hike before him; he follows within the hour. They planned to return to the trail Thursday morning, hopefully satiated and well rested. We know they are happy and strong. ~Amy