Oops I did it again... (minimal photos)

I have not taken any photos in the past week.  To back track a little before leaving Massachusetts we went rock climbing at Rose Ledge.  I do have a few photos of that.  Matthew actually did a blog post on it http://www.blog.smalladventures.net/2016/06/my-first-trad-climb.html  It was a really fun climb and a gorgeous day.  We were the only ones out there and did our first attempt at Trad climbing.  He went up the route first and then I 'cleaned'.  He goes into detail about it on his blog if you are interested.  What he doesn't mention is on the hike out I twisted my left ankle again.  It was worse than last time.  We left the next day for the Green Mountains in Vermont, found a nice private dispersed camping site and hung out for 2 days.  I rested my foot for a day, it felt ok but iffy so I did some of the physical therapy exercises I'd been neglecting to do.  We went for a run, unsure of the distance but somewhere between 4-6 miles.  I massaged it and it felt OK.  We then decided to do a 4 day backpacking trip and this is where I failed you.  I have NO photos from the whole trip.  We expected rain storms so neither of us took a camera aka our cell phones.  It was an amazing trip, and I'm really sad we didn't think to just take a phone in a zip lock bag.  We stopped at 3 ponds and they kept getting more beautiful!  The weather was too cool for a swim but I still wanted to get in really bad.  I'm sad to report I was too much of a chicken to swim.  I got waist deep on the warmest day... which was not that warm.  I did get in more than Matthew, so that's a small victory.  The trails in Vermont are quite muddy.  Apparently it is lovingly called Vermud.  I had wet shoes and socks from day one, it was unavoidable.  Especially when you come across a sign on the trail that says "Trail closed due to flooding, follow yellow path" and your adventurous boyfriend says "Nah, we got this" and stays on the trail anyway.  I was not thrilled but part of this journey is to push past my comfort zones.  They were getting pushed daily.  I have to say, it was worth it. We found a nice camping area and had the whole place to ourselves, also a bonus of backpacking in the middle of the week.  I do have a photo of the map to show where we hiked.

We started at the bottom middle, Stratton Pond Parking.  We only hiked to Stratton pond the first day, about a 4 mile hike.  I wanted to start with low miles and gradually work up.  The next day we went from Stratton pond (to the right of the center) to the left on Lye brook trail then left at Branch pond trail, we stopped for lunch at Branch pond, then went back north to Bourne pond for the night.  Maybe a total of 6 miles that day?  The third day we kept going north to the William B Douglas shelter at the top of the photo, had lunch there, then took the Long Trail/Appalachian trail South back to Stratton pond, about 8 miles that day.  We stayed near the shelter that night and met a few AT through hikers and had some good laughs.  We got lucky, even though it rained that day it didn't rain that night.  On the fourth day we took it easy and did about 4 miles out the way we went in.  We spent that rest of that day in Manchester.  We shared a pizza, did laundry, checked emails and walked the town.  It was a really nice day.  We met an interesting guy named Greg who was working at an Olive and Ives, they have a wonderful selection of oils and vinegar's which we tried a lot of.  We were walking by the store and he just happened to be out smoking a cigarette and started chatting.  It's pretty quiet in the area so he only had 2 customers all day until we showed up around 3pm.  So we shared stories, had delicious samples and made a new friend.  We left the area and headed to the northern part of the Green Mountains in search of rock climbing.  It's rainy today but we scouted out the area with a little hike this morning and are looking forward to climbing tomorrow.  Here's a random photo of me outside a gift shop in Manchester... 

My ankle did well during the hikes, but did ache towards the end of the 8 mile day.  I think the hiking helped strengthen it and I will be more diligent to do my PT exercises.  Anyway, the weather gods claim it will be warm and sunny for the next few days, I'll be good and take photos.