Wednesday September 30, 13.6mi/21.9km

Spruce Ledge Camp (240.0/1516ft) to Hazens Notch Shelter (253.6/2064ft) (VT)

We left the shelter a little later, to wait out the rain. By the time we left at 7:45am, it had slowed to a sprinkle.

10 minutes later, we came to Devils Gulch, a boulder-strewn crevice at the bottom of the mountain.

One of the rocks created a little tunnel, it reminded me of Mahoosuc Notch on the AT.

We walked all morning in the wet flooded trail. Mark is showing off his clothing system for wet days.

The fall colors were really on display today.

Some places the trail was a little overgrown.

We skipped the short side trail to the firetower on Belvidere Mountain, as it was still lightly raining and foggy. We hiked down to Lockwood Pond, a beaver creation.

We are lunch at Tillotson Shelter, as it was still a little wet outside. We met two SOBOs who were just leaving, getting a very late start to the day.

After lunch, the rain had stopped completely, though the trail was extremely wet.

We hiked up to the top of Haystack Mountain, and by now the clouds had started to clear out.

This is my summit face.

The view to the south was pretty good too.

We hiked down very steeply to Hazens Notch, and I took a short break at the road.

We hiked the final 1.5mi uphill to the shelter, and found it empty.

An hour later, a woman from Alaska showed up, she was very friendly, and interesting to talk with. We had another fun social evening, and went to bed at 8pm.