Hike #30 The Weather Queen Said Rain… We Said Game On

Hike #30 Day 3 Vermont | September 23, 2025 | Hiking with AGC | 12.57 miles, 2,913 ft ascent, 1,939 ft descent | Danby-Landgrove Rd to Mad Tom Notch

The forecast looked iffy, so I pinged my pickleball pal Chris… aka the Weather Queen, the human Doppler herself. This time I begged her wisdom for our hike, not the courts. Verdict: “You’ll hit the trail and it’ll rain until around 3 pm.” No hedging. No maybe. Just royal decree. Hopeful, caffeinated, and fully prepared to get gloriously soggy, we piled out of the van, and unfortunately (but not surprisingly), the Weather Queen was 100% accurate.

About a mile in the sky opened up. The rain started polite, then got seriously dramatic. The fall leaves, ruby and gold, looked like they were wearing sequins, each one a tiny mirror catching the drops. It was the kind of wet that makes everything sharper, brighter, and oddly celebratory.

My rain jacket was doing its job, sort of. Too hot, so I shoved my arms through the zippered pit vents (clearly not intended for my entire arms). That worked…until it didn’t. 😂

We climbed uphill almost the entire day. One foot. Then the other. Repeat. Until the trail turned into stone ledges, and the only safe option was finding the thinnest mossy crack to plant your foot. Those cracks stretched on like a tricky staircase made by a mischievous giant. At times I went down to my hands and crab-walked. At one point I hurled my poles down to a spike-rock outcrop so I could scoot on my butt, grabbing for the sharp edge like it was the lid of a stubborn jar.

With every precarious step I had this thought: one wrong placement, one tiny misstep, and everything could change. Instantly my brain flashed friends’ stories where one change, one decision, one thing happened that changed their lives: the friend who stopped drinking one day and saved his life, the friend who found the courage to leave an abusive marriage, the friend who’s daughter became suddenly ill and is now fighting for her life, and my baby niece who would have celebrated her birthday today. The weight of these stories pressed on my chest, the same way my wrists throbbed from supporting my body on the ledges.

Every careful foot, each tiny decision, had carried me to that moment. This ledge, this rain, this perfect muddy chaos. We were doing the kind of walking that leaves you both exhausted and strangely elated: the kind that reminds you you’re alive and damnit, you can do anything.

By the end of the day we had pushed through 12.57 mostly-wet miles, climbed 2,913 feet up, descended 1,939 feet, and logged 8 hours and 13 minutes of adventure. We were soaked, muddy, and completely content. Some of us dreaming of beer, others of pizza.

Here’s the quiet truth the trail whispers when you’re holding on by your fingertips and laughing about your soggy socks: life is a series of tiny placements. Most of them are ordinary, put the pole here, step on the rock there, but sometimes one small choice becomes the hinge of everything that follows. The brave thing is to keep moving, to place your foot where you can, to trust the people in your van (who’s in your van????), and to keep choosing the path that grows you.

So next time the forecast looks iffy, call your own Weather Queen. Load the van. And remember: whether it’s a slippery ledge or a difficult decision in life, keep putting one foot in front of the other. You might get soaked, but you’ll probably come home with the best stories.

— Kim (and the soggy, smiling crew)

PS: Should we ask the Weather Queen for tomorrows forecast?