Agile Trekker: VT Appalachian Trail - Sections 1-2 - Tigertown/Podunk Road to Pomfret Road

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
10/12/2017	11 miles	4 hours 58 minutes	2,503'

Map: New Hampshire-Vermont Appalachian Trail Guide and maps that come with it
Parking: Left first car at the intersection of Podunk Rd./Tigertown Rd. Left second car at Pomfret Road.
Directions: Hike northbound on AT from Pomfret Road to Podunk Rd/Tigertown Rd.

The drive from Rutland to this area was a bit longer, but beautiful. We went on smaller road with lots of tiny towns, farmland and mountain views. Today's parking was not in parking lots. At the intersection of Podunk Rd/Tigertown Rd, there was space for around 3 cars on the side of the road. At Pomfret Road, we parked on the shoulder. There were many bicyclists passing by us when we were getting ready at Pomfret Road. There was some organized trip for biking in Vermont. Some of them stopped where we were parked - and they were so excited to see the Appalachian Trail and hear about our hiking. On the other hand, I thought what they were doing was crazy - as they were biking up long hills!

Today's hike was a mix of woods, fields, and road walking. We saw a lot of wild apple trees - remnants of long forgotten farms. We also passed by quite a few areas of maple sugar taps. The tubing is kind of ugly, but I'm a huge fan of maple syrup on my oatmeal. There were long sections of walking on woods roads. The AT blazes were sometimes quite far apart. It is so easy on woods roads to just get in a groove and not pay attention to where you are going. We ended up checking the Guthook app periodically to make sure we hadn't missed a turn off. Luckily, there was a wooden sign which told us when to leave the woods road. We had comfortable weather. It was 44 degrees and sunny - warm enough to wear a short sleeve shirt for most of the day. Although Vermont is notorious for mud & black flies, this time of year has been great. The trail has been dry, and although we've had some bugs - none of them were biting. We saw a few backpackers again today. We are assuming they are sobo's that had flip-flopped. I stopped at a shelter privy today. It had a screened top half so you could get a view! Today's mileage (via Strava) was longer than the book mileage - we're not sure why. Today had some steep but shorter climbs. My body was feeling good today!

Today we were closer to the NH border. We were running out of exciting Rutland restaurants, so we decided to drive to Hanover, NH for dinner. We found a Nepalese restaurant with "vegan" on a number of dishes. Score! In the same building was a crepe restaurant, which actually also had "vegan" on the menu. I'm thinking Hanover is probably a very cool town - it's a college town after all.