Day 14: 2 July, 0 miles today, 166.2 miles total, Rutland, VT
Days without rain: N/A
Non-hikers always assume you’re exaggerating when you tell them that Rutland’s Yellow Deli—famous all along the Appalachian Trail for its phenomenal sandwiches and honeyed yerba mate—and the hiker hostel adjacent to the restaurant, are run by a cult. Even in person it can be, perhaps conveniently, easy to overlook. When I stayed at the hostel during my AT hike in 2017, the vibe was overwhelmingly set by a crowd of rowdy thru-hikers so dense some of them ended up having to find floor space in the common room. It was only on the last day of our triple zero, which coincided with the group’s sabbath, that my friends and I caught a glimpse of the day-long religious observance that kept the storefront shuttered on Saturdays. I wouldn’t come across anything that even reminded me of the choreographed dancing and pageantry I witnessed that day until I saw the movie Midsommar several years later.
As a group, the Twelve Tribes is incredibly difficult to parse from the outside. The Rutland branch of the Yellow Deli, when it was open, was practically wallpapered with their tracts—but these were almost indecipherable. They dress in semi-modern farm clothes, the men in button-up work shirts or polos and blue jeans, the women in sort of modest, floral-print pantsuits. The overall look is as if a branch of Mennonites had decided to start getting their clothes from Sears. This aesthetic belies the intensely retrograde nature of their religion, which is meant to be new coming of the first-century Christian church. This partly explains the presence of some otherwise seemingly incongruous odds and ends from Judaism—such as the insistence on the use of the Hebrew name Yahshua for the savior known amongst the “fallen” denominations of Christianity as Jesus.
When I came to this place 8 years ago, the Yellow Deli downstairs and the Hiker Hostel upstairs were both packed tight with humans. But in 2023 the sandwich shop was closed for renovations which have yet to be completed in 2025, and when I checked into the hostel fewer than half the bunks had a tenet. My second night in town, the place had barely as many as I could count on one hand. It may still have been early in the AT hiker season—I hadn’t come through Vermont until August, myself—but the emptiness of the place made the strangeness of the cult that ran it all the more obvious. There was less to distract me from it.
The members assigned to work the Hiker Hostel were all unfailingly friendly and kind to every one of us, taking pains to make sure we had everything we needed, and that we got enough to eat at breakfast. And pure generosity toward strangers is rare enough in this mean and petulant country that it feels gross even to question it, but now I was really starting wonder if this kind of welcome wasn’t meant to appeal to certain small fraction of hikers each year, lost and searching for meaning over every mountaintop between Georgia and Maine. I noticed, too, how young most of the cleaning staff was. Most children have chores, and for most families—and even congregations—that run small businesses, many of those chores involve work in the shop. But I was starting to wonder where the line was. The adult women assigned to run the washing machines didn’t seem thrilled to be cleaning up after hikers, for instance—and some of the rumors of the work done by members at the community’s farm were downright unwholesome. But in the end, forced labor doesn’t need to be particularly onerous to be immoral; it just needs to be forced.
Maybe I’m making too much of the whole cult thing. But maybe I’m not. It’s not that it didn’t seem real on the AT, but most of us treated it like a quirky novelty, something to give stories from this part of the trail a little bit of spice. The obvious signs that something wasn’t quite right were easy to overlook. They always are. We don’t think about the children toiling the cacao fields of West Africa or the sweatshops of East Asia, or even the exploited migrants raising our produce at home. Even now I want to believe that the Twelve Tribes is benign, though that would make them the first group of religious fundamentalists ever to be so. Because it’s convenient. Because their food is good. Because they’ve always been outwardly kind to me. Because I don’t want to look too far under the surface of something that’s felt good and see the festering rot that’s been there the whole time.
I wasn’t the same person I’d been back in 2017, and the Yellow Deli wasn’t the same place. And for better or worse, I wouldn’t be able to look at it in quite the same way, ever again.
Day 15: 3 July, 10.6 miles today, 176.8 miles total, Governor Clement Shelter, Jim Jeffords State Forest
Days without rain: 0
“You’re leaving already?” I had been at the Yellow Deli’s hiker hostel for two nights. I had picked up my resupply, done laundry, charged my electronics, showered (twice), mended the quickly-growing hole in my backpack’s mesh pocket, replaced the broken tips on both my trekking poles, called Sean Meadow, called my parents, and eaten enough rich town food to explode the belly of a bull moose. I’d only even taken a zero because I had pushed hard to get to town ahead of schedule, and I was getting antsy to get back on trail. Still, the hostel caretaker seemed quite disappointed in my decision to leave. “Thanks for everything,” I said. He looked at me balefully. “You’re welcome,” he finally said.
It was hard not to notice the dark, swirling clouds dancing across the gray sky as I made the short walk to the bus that would return me to the trail. There was rain in the forecast, though how much and when seemed beyond anyone’s ability to answer. As it turned out, the rain held off just until I was standing at the base of Mt. Killington with my hip belt cinched tight and my freshly repaired trekking poles in hand. It was a fairly light shower, but it lasted almost the entire climb. I though back to a conversation I’d had with a couple of NOBOs the day I had gone over the summit of Mt. Mansfield. “How was the AT?” I’d asked. “Under water.” I’d hoped then that by the time I’d gotten that far the trail would have had a chance to dry out—but for that to happen it would have had, at some point, to stop raining.
As I neared the spur trail to the Killington summit, the sun came out and set all the saturated ground to steaming. I wasn’t feeling particularly enthusiastic about the steep quarter mile scramble to the summit, but figured I may as well. When I first settled on a rocky outcropping, the peak was completely socked in. I spread my lunch out, shaking my head at what a waste of time this side quest had been. Then the clouds lifted on the breeze, giving me a view of several mountains toward the west. Maybe not such a waste, after all.
On the way down the south slope, the temperature suddenly dropped and it got so dark I couldn’t see where I was stepping. Thunder cracked and I could hear the downpour coming toward me across the forest like a subway train coming into the station. I thought about stopping to dig my rain jacket out of my pack—I was already chilly—but then the rain hit and within seconds I was soaked through. Getting wet I could live with. It was when the hail started that I really wished I’d been more proactive with that damned jacket.
Still, it passed relatively quickly, and by late afternoon the sun was fighting to come back out. The thunder never completely went away, however, and I could never quick pick out which direction the weather was moving. I came to an old stone shelter at Killington’s southern foot and ducked inside to figure out how much farther I wanted to go, but almost at once it started raining again. It was a bit early to stop, but I didn’t relish the thought of pitching my tent in this mess and having to pack it up wet in the morning. Besides, I was tired of walking in the rain. I set up my pad in the shelter, and watched as the night’s flood of AT NOBOs rolled in, every one of them soaked to the skin.
Day 16: 4 July, 19.4 miles today, 196.2 miles total, Homer Stone Brook, Robert Stafford White Rocks National Recreation Area
Days without rain: 1
The rain came in waves, off and on, for most of the night. The damp air was chilly, and not for the first time since starting this trail I was surprised how cold it actually was. I was wearing almost every layer I had with me, my warm weather sleeping bag sealed tight to lock in as much heat as possible. I slept soundly enough, but when the morning broke it took me some time to convince myself to leave the warmth of my down-lined human burrito.
The morning was bright, clear, and fine, once I stumbled out of the shelter to pee and retrieve my food bag from the tree from which I’d hung it overnight. There wasn’t a trace of a single cloud in the summer sky, and the lightest chill in the air made everything feel fresh and even clean. It was great weather for hiking, perfect even. I’d seen so many AT NOBOs the day before, I was surprised to find myself all alone for most of the morning. But then the trickle began, first one, then another, then a small but reliable of stream, punctuated every now and then by a couple or a family out on a day hike. One of these, a middle-aged man and woman with a girl I assumed to be their daughter, were struggling up a steep climb as I was working my way down, when one of them bumped into the other—a fact I was unaware of until one of them screamed, “WATCH WHERE THE FUCK YOU’RE GOING, BITCH!” I stepped aside to let them pass, and I could hear the three of them sniping at each other almost the whole rest of the way down.
I was just wondering whether I should stop for an early lunch, when I hit a road crossing with a large parking lot for trail access, and in the corner of the lot was a large pop-up tent and a circle of folding camp chairs. Trail magic! Almost unheard of on the northern reaches of the LT—or any part of the CDT, AZT, or any of the less popular long-distance trails—this variety of trail magic is most common on the PCT and the AT, which I was now on. The fellow hosting had gotten into when his daughter had hiked the AT a few years before, and now made a point of coming out a few times each summer. He had coolers with soda, beer, and chocolate bars, bins with whoopie pies, cookies, crackers, ramen, chips, and fresh fruit. He also had water, first aid supplies, and a large oversized battery for charging phones. It was great to sit and bask in the sun, great to chat with this guy and the other hikers who had stopped, great to eat my fill while sipping on a frosty diet coke.
The afternoon went on much as the morning had, the miles rolling easily by under foot. As the afternoon deepened and I was thinking I might stop for a snack, I noticed I was coming to another rural highway, another trailhead. Wouldn’t it be amazing to hit trail magic twice in one day? I thought. Just then, a pair of NOBOs came around a bend, charging up the hill. “Trail magic at the parking lot!” they yelled, “Don’t miss it!”
I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to—not only were there signs pointing the way as I got closer, but as I came into the clearing I saw that this couple had set up right next to the trail itself. No sooner had the man standing closest to the propane stove seen me than he’d bellowed, “how many hot dogs do you want?”
There is something about these encounters that transcends the mountains of free food—even the two hotdogs I had for dinner, which were juicy and delicious and perfectly cooked. Even on the AT, where people frequently sleep in or near shelters, you often don’t see everyone around you, or when you do it’s only for a minute as you pass one another on trail. Trail magic of this sort is a an opportunity for hikers to actively be in community, with the broader trail network that supports them in a million different ways, but also with each other. They’re like neighborhood barbecues, the sort of thing I remember going to on the 4th of July as a kid. God knows there wasn’t much to celebrate about the United States during the summer of 2025, but these pools of generosity and the bonds of hiker camaraderie they helped to strengthen were among the few things that made me happy to be back in America, even now.
Day 17: 5 July, 18.2 miles today, 214.4 miles total, Bromley Mountain, Green Mountain National Forest
Days without rain: 2
Then, just like that, the AT NOBOs all but disappeared.
Each of my first two days on the Appalachian Trail section of the Long Trail, I passed at least two dozen. On day three, I only saw two—not counting the small cluster who hadn’t left the shelter I stopped at an hour into my day to use the privy—one late in the morning, the other in the afternoon. It was baffling, this sudden almost total isolation. It was also kind of heartbreaking to think about the couple I’d passed in the morning setting up trail magic for a crowd of hikers who would never come. They’d had have to wait a couple hours just for the one grumpy guy I saw a little before lunch.
The day I’d left Rutland I was pelted for a few minutes by a shower of grape-nuts sized hail, which had been notably unpleasant. Talking to a NOBO LT couple at trail magic the following day, they’d mentioned hiding in one of the shelters as marble sized hail battered the ground. I couldn’t imagine being out in a storm like that without shelter, and when I hiked through the area they’d been in I was startled by the evidence of its violence. For miles, the ground was littered with torn and mangled leaves, ripped from the trees by the ice. This carpet of freshly mown foliage buried rocks and mud puddles from view, and transformed the forest floor to a strange and unnatural texture. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.
My shoes were dying. Truthfully, they had been for some time, but each day the holes in the uppers letting daylight and mud into my socks got just a little bit bigger. They’d seen a bit of use before I brought them on trail, but I hadn’t expected them to begin the disintegratory process quite this soon. It didn’t seem to helping the injured tendon in my right foot, which had survived the traumas of northern Vermont without needing even to be wrapped. I had hoped it had healed enough to let me walk the entire LT in peace, but here in the last hundred miles it wanted to let me know it hadn’t forgotten all the terrible things I had done to it. Everything below the ankle seemed to falling apart now that I was approaching the end. I just needed it all to hold together a few more days.
Day 18: 6 July, 3.0 miles today, 217.4 miles total, Manchester Center, VT
Days without rain: 3
Walking the Appalachian Trail was like walking through a haunted house—or, more accurately, down a long, haunted hallway. Most bends through the forest were not specifically familiar to me, but every so often I would come upon some landmark I could recognize, and the flood of memories from my first thru-hike would be immediate and overwhelming.
The riverside lean-to where I’d stopped for a snack the day before, I could remember with absolute precision from eight years before, even though all I’d done then was stop for a quick lunch on my own while pushing to catch up to my friend just ahead of me. I could even remember what I ate, the joyful squish of the sugary “orange” slices I’d had for desert, as I’d watched the tannin-stained water crashing over the rocks in the riverbed. The grassy summit of Bromley Mountain, now overgrown and teeming with no-see-ums but capped with a glossy new four-story observation tower, took me back to a warm and quiet August night when four of us had slept on this summit under the summer stars.
Before descending the mountain in the morning, I couldn’t remember whether or not I had gone into the town of Manchester Center while on the AT. When I got to the trailhead after 3 quick and easy miles, I ran into an AT NOBO who was getting ready to hitch into town. I hadn’t bummed a ride with another hiker since I’d been on the CDT, but we walked to the shoulder of Hwy 11/30 as a pair, and a spacious SUV pulled over to take us into town not two minutes after we’d stuck out our thumbs. The sense of Deja-vu, absent from the trailhead parking lot, sharpened into crisp relief as we passed the Pick-Your-Own-Berries farm stand where the woman who had driven my friend and I back to trail in 2017 had insisted on stopping on the way. Even the parking lot for the Price Chopper felt intimately familiar.
I was close enough to the end of the hike that I needed to focus on making the plans that would eventually get me home, to look forward instead of looking back. Still, the shadows of the past eight years hung over me wherever I went. To be submerged in nostalgia is not an unpleasant sensation, but it’s distracting. Whatever is happening now is always the more important thing—while there is still trail left to hike, you have to pay attention to where you’re putting your feet.
