Town of Colchester

What an awesome weekend. When I hashed with the Halve Mein H3 on Wednesday, I thought that was going to be my last trail in the USA for the summer . . . but luck was on my side. While up in Vermont for a 10K race yesterday morning, I got an event announcement from the Von Tramp H3 that they were going to have a trail for the Full Moon, in Burlington yesterday afternoon. They are a fairly new hash, so I did not know what to expect. As the pack gathered, the hares announced it was going to be a “Pick Up” hash.

Drawing straws, the first hare was selected and received a 3 (well, probably more like 5) minute head start. He was tricky, and had a all headed the wrong way after the first corner he went around. But he was soon run down, and the second hare took off. Meanwhile, I began my usual moves to outflank the hare, and was rewarded with catching the second hare a couple blocks over. He passed over the map exclaiming he did not know where he was, so I just took off running until I found some street signs. After several minutes, I finally figured out where I was, and where the objective beer stop was, and set off to find some interesting terrain. After about a mile, I was snared and passed the flour over to Flexy who ran trail down to the edge of the park. In all, we had 6 hares covering just shy of 3 miles getting to the first beer stop.

After gathering up the pack, straws were drawn again, and the first hare set off with a new map headed for beer check number 2. Flanking this hare also, I managed to take over the tail setting duties. Zigging my way through town, I managed to find the park in the middle of town, the police station, another park, before circling a store and heading right back through the other side of the second park. The pack was coming down the street, but I was able to stand motionless and watch them looking around. A couple hounds got close, so I had to dart to a grassy spot and lay down while the FRBs found trail and yelled out, bringing them all back together. I then headed out towards the edge of town, looking for a foot trail in the woods that was on the map. Hitting a chain link fence, I turned into the forest, but after only a couple hundred feet, the undergrowth was too dense . . . plus I had run out of flour, so just started walking back towards the pack. Passing back over to Flexy again, who had the second bottle of flour, he took us the rest of the way into the second beer check out in the forest. The pack had grown by this point, as some wayward (LATE) hashers had finally caught up.

https://www.relive.cc/view/vYvrLkMzxx6

The final leg was hared by Flexy, as he took us back to the park where we started and had the cooler pulled out by the time we all arrived. By the time we circled up, we had a pack of over a dozen hashers. All in all, it was an awesome 6-7 mile pick up trail (making it a solid 13 mile day), and a fun and entertaining circle. With the cooler nearing empty, we cleaned up and headed to a local pub back in the middle of town. A few more hashers ended up joining us there. It was the perfect ending to the past 5 weeks and 15 hash trails in NY, VT, ME, MA, NH, and RI. Many thanks to all the hash clubs in the region.Read more