The Appalachian Trail, Vermont
Yep, that's the trail. A lot of what I remember of Vermont is summed up in this one photo.
This is the runoff from Hurricane Beryl. We heard about the storm at Jack's place the night before, and on the radio during the drive to the Trail. That's about when Jason's dad offered to slack everyone who wanted to. I put on my pack. Snowman donned his. No slackpacking for us. It was going to be hard to keep up with everyone else, and I really, really hoped I wasn't making a very dumb mistake.
A half mile on to the Trail, all of us got caught in the rain - a torrential downpour. We hiked on. The rain came down, and down, and down. The rest of the hikers half-jogged up the Trail. Snowman and I slogged on. Not a fun day. When the rains let up, the bugs came out. Then more rain. More bugs. Ah, the cycle of life.