The river is still partially frozen, even just beyond the lake outlet (probably because it’s more swamp than river at that point), so we made ourselves comfortable in our little campsite on the slash to wait out the thaw.
There’s still three feet or so of snow, but it hasn’t gotten cold enough to freeze any of our water bottles; since this was forecasted to be the coldest part of the week we’re hoping to be fully underway by the 21st at the latest.
The obvious question here is “why didn’t you idiots just wait to leave Vermont until Friday, then?” Honestly, I think we’re both more content up here than we would have been sitting around in Stowe for four more days. We’re out of cell service, we have plenty of food (and scotch), and we’ve got a chance to catch up on all the sleep we’ve missed in the last few weeks while prepping for this trip. Plus we’re not spending any money out here in the woods, which is nice, and we have the joy of knowing we’re FINALLY underway… even if we haven’t actually paddled anywhere yet.
We got buzzed by a snowmobile while we were in the tent, but since they didn’t stop we figured either a) they weren’t border patrol, b) they didn’t see us, or c) they saw us but just didn’t care.
The coffee is hot, the company’s good, the tent is warm and dry. No regrets.
