START LOCATION: Upper Goose Pond Cabin
FINISH LOCATION: Kay Wood Lean-to
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 17.6
TRIP MILEAGE: 1,556.6
MILES TO GO: 622.5
I awoke nice and early in my bunk around 5:30. It was a good, long
sleep. I packed up and was surprised to see nearly all the hikers were
downstairs eating pancakes already. Ambitious bunch. I ate a lot of
pancakes. Flatlander and Mama Lipton kept pushing them on us, and you
know how it goes, a thru hiker can't say no.
Smokestack and I hit the trail at 7:30AM. It was threatening rain...
Yes... Rain! We reached the Mass Pike (I-90) within 1 1/4 mile around
8:00AM. We could actually hear it from the UGPC. It was pretty cool to
stand there and look east knowing Boston is only a couple hours away.
This would be our last east-west interstate crossing too. It started
to rain about that time so we pushed on. As Smoke and I climbed up to
about 2,000' we were distracted by the drastic change in hiking
climate. Today was cool and rainy. The last time it rained steadily
while we hiked was 1 month ago... June 9 the day before we crossed the
halfway point of the AT. Crazy. The bugs were better today, but one
thing was pretty nasty... The trail vegetation. The trail was so
overgrown with weeds and thorn bushes, that we'd thought we'd lost the
AT. It was the worst section of trail since the poison ivy tunnel in
Pennsylvania. Anyway, the lack of sweltering heat distracted us so
much that when we arrived at County Road, we were blown away by how
fast we'd hiked... 7 miles in 2 hours. We were ecstatic at this... Our
feet were absolutely drenched and we only had 1.8 miles to go to our
lunch break shelter.
We rolled into October Mtn Shelter and spent a long lunch there. We
wrang out our socks, I ate my hiker breakfast and lunch and I even
dozed off for a while. All told, we spent about 3 1/2 hours there
letting the skies empty themselves. And they did. We hit the trail at
2PM for our 9 mile push to Kay Wood Shelter. It was a fun afternoon
because the trail was flat but challenging... Lots of little small ups
and downs and twists and turns. It was kind of like driving a
hairpinned road with a good handling car. Best part... The rain held
off.
We reached Kay Wood by a nice early 4:30 PM. It was great to have so
much evening camp time while still having done solid miles. There was
a cool sectioner there and some nice weekenders from Mass. Two were
veterinary students at Tufts in Grafton. One was even from North
Reading. They were fun company. Fredo rolled in too and he's a great
guy around camp. Lastly, I was blown away to finally see him again...
Cornpatch, in the flesh. The last time I saw Cornpatch was Hot
Springs, NC before I got off for Easter weekend. He rolled in, brought
beers and we caught up on our goings on since. He was actually staying
at a nearby hiker friendly family's yard for the evening and actually
hiked to see who was here and give out the beers. He's a crackup. It
was great seeing him and look forward to possibly hiking with him in
Vermont next Wednesday.
Tomorrow... Breakfast in Dalton, MA, lunch in Cheshire, MA then we
push our way up towards Mount Greylock, Massachusetts highest point.
We'll summit early Monday morning.
-natedog
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