Nude greeting everyone. Its been quite a while since I have posted here with you all. Sorry about my long absence, lots of good things going on these past few years, many travels across the globe, and not enough time to be active on line. COVID has changed many things.....maybe more free time to post? We'll see. However to start, I thought that I'd share a bit with you about yesterday’s great hike that John posted a lead to last week in his previous thread. Our group's annual hike is a gesture of appreciation for the tradition among through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail (USA grand daddy to all long distance hiking trails) to hike naked on the day of the Summer Solstice. We have been organizing this hike to take place in Vermont for at least a decade and a half without fail. We moved our hike this year to an alternate trail up the east side of the Somerset Reservoir in southern Vermont which is closer to where many of us must travel from other nearby states in which we live. The COVID travel restrictions have put our usual route on a particularly scenic stretch of the AT in the vicinity of Mount Tabor further north in Vermont out of reach for this year. Somerset Reservoir set deep in the Green Mountain range is a most appropriate alternative venue. The hike is an annual 10 mile nude hike for which many of us do not take along any clothing. Totally free.....nothing in the pack except water, lunch, and this year a neck gator for mouth and nose cover. Thus most of us got wet this time during a predicted by denied rain storm. But wet skin is naturally comfortable on a hot summer day. Far more so than wet clothing I dare say.
A good friend of ours (John and myself) is one of the co-founders along with the two of us, of an informal but very active New England regional nude hiking group sometimes known as ANANEC. Here is his take:
[begin quote]
The hike was good. We started out at 10 a.m. with 15 people. Lance, Dan K, Dan D, and Milton from our group, many regulars from our previous Solstice hikes, along with some new faces as well.
Five, including the 3 women, turned around at the first cove, not sure why. But then we picked up one guy whom we passed. He had driven over from eastern NH for a hike. Turned out he had participated in a Mt Tabor solstice hike in the past, but didn't know that we were moving it to Somerset this year. He joined on and hiked with us sans clothing.
The weather held until we got to lunch rock. Then a thunderstorm hit and the skies opened up. We moved from our exposed position on the lake shore, to a nearby spot back under the trees. I was the only one (out of 11 at this point) who had brought rain gear, so I stayed more-or-less dry and everyone else got soaked, but fortunately it was a warm day and a relatively warm rain. We ate our lunches in the rain and turned back after 25 minutes or so. The rain lasted another 20-30 minutes, but then the sun came out and it was a glorious afternoon on the lake. Dan D, Dan K and I jumped in the lake for a swim and found it quite comfortably warm.
The total hike was more than 10 miles, according to Rich's device. Having not hiked since last fall, I was fairly exhausted, and so headed home without ceremony. Dan, Lance, Mike and Roy (yes, another Roy; uses the handle naturistsoaker) headed back down the trail looking for a spot to get in another swim.
Surely the warmest solstice hike in Vermont that I have yet experienced, with temperatures pushing 80. Unfortunately, the bugs were annoying (mosquitoes and deer flies), so I felt like I had to keep moving at all times. I have a few itchy bites today.
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I have tried but failed to attached a photo here of most of our group at the start, taken in the parking lot in full view of the general public near the boat launch for the lake. Such is a freedom in Vermont that few living in other parts of the USA enjoy. Milton has observed that we look like a bunch of proper Englishmen, what with our formal social distance posing. Ah, the sacrifices that we must make to our "new normal". Maybe hugs again next year?
Alas, I don't have Irfanview installed on this computer. Native Windows photo editor seems blind to all file formats but JPEG, so I'm unable to massage the file to the size and format constraints to attachments here. I'll re-post the photo soon when I get back on my other computer.
Stay well. Play naked.
-Dan
