Hitting the Slopes

At the top of the mountain. 

    Today we only hiked a short distance - a little over 5 miles - since we had to relocate our "base camp" further north after our big 40 mile push.  Our hike may have been short, but it was very interesting.  It was cloudy and cool with a nice breeze.  On the way up the mountain, about a mile from the top, we stopped on a rock for a water break only to discover 4 snakes who had claimed the rock before us.  First come, first serve I say.  So we moved on.  When we got to the top of the mountain, we spent some time exploring the summit, since the mountain doubles as a ski slope in the wintertime.

Wish we'd taken the chair lift up!

    There were chair lifts and signs all over the summit, labeling the various ski trails.  It's fun to think that during the winter, people can actually snow ski down little bits of the AT.  The view at the top was wonderful.  Apparently there used to be a fire tower at the summit, from which you could see 5 states on a clear day, but the fire tower was taken down this year because it was no longer safe.  We finished our hiking for the day in plenty of time to relocate with Trail Angel to a beautiful Vermont B&B (although "base camp" location for the past week has been wonderful too - the innkeepers were so very nice, and it turned out that their son in law is a doctor at my medical school, and had actually lectured to my class this year...What a wonderful, small world!)  We got to enjoy a relaxing afternoon and a delicious dinner, which I was so glad for after a few days of camping.  I was especially glad to be inside for the night, since being outside for two nights in a row left me covered in mosquito bites.  I think I'll be refilling my big spray soon.

View of the VT hills from the top of the "slopes."

More Milestones and Nights in the Woods

Officially past the 1600 mile mark!

    Over the past three days, we've hiked about 40 miles and spent two nights camping.  On Sunday, we celebrated passing the 1600 mile mark.  I'm still blown away when I think about the mileage.  Even though we haven't done it all at once, it makes me smile to see those numbers tick by.  I still have trouble believing we've actually hiked this far.  It's something truly special.  On our first day out, we hiked a little over 14 miles.  It started raining in the late afternoon, and we walked in the drizzle for a couple of hours.  The rain wasn't too heavy, and it cooled things off and filled up the very dry streams, so I was glad to have it.  We camped in the vicinity of a shelter.  A very nice shelter with an expansive view of the mountains.  I was glad that we had taken our sturdier tent and some hot food.  I fell asleep listening to the sound of the rain on the roof of the tent.
        The next day was quite an accomplishment for us.  We hiked a little over 17 miles.  In the world of Nano and Amicus, that's covering a lot of ground.  We climbed Southern Vermont's highest peak and even ventured up into the abandoned fire tower at the summit (one of two fire towers we climbed over this stretch).

Fire Tower view.

    We also passed a very large lake, which I was tempted to take a swim in, but didn't, since we needed to press on.  While filling up our water bottles, a young man who we'd seen on the trail a couple of times over the past day caught up to us, and while small-talking about the difficulty of summiting the mountain behind us, extolled the virtues of "retroblazing" (otherwise known as taking the old/non-official trail *around* the mountain instead of *over* it) and "iron blazing" (walking along railroad tracks).  I learned some new vocabulary, but I remain true to my AT-purist views.  I am bound and determined to pass every single official white blaze between Georgia and Maine.
  

Break by the Lake

    After 17+ miles of hiking, I was very ready to be finished for the day.  We found a great campsite by a river and had Ramen Noodles on a rock in the middle of the water.  This river was the first river I've seen on the whole AT which didn't look right.  It was an odd yellowish brown color.  We didn't drink from it, but it made an excellent backdrop to our camp.

Camp Nano, deluxe version.

   On our third day of this push, we hiked over 8 miles.  Amazingly, we did it in about 4.5 hours.  Amicus said that I was so motivated to get to the rendezvous point that I went into my special, extra-fast "we're almost to the truck" hiking mode.  One special moment of the morning - we saw a bear!  After we'd been hiking for about a mile, we saw it on the right side of the trail.  It was a very small black bear, and it ran away as fast as it could.  But it was a very special sight.  We made good time and got to the rendezvous point in time for a big, tasty burger lunch and a little exploring around the beautiful small towns in the area.  We even got to feed some gigantic trout and pick up some local organic goodies at a farmer's market for dinner.  Hiking 40 miles over three days is not easy for Nano, but it was so much fun to spend a longer stretch of time in the woods and experience more of what the Vermont AT has to offer.

A very happy Nano rendezvousing with her Trail Angel after 40 miles.  

Welcome to Vermont!

Entering Vermont!

    Over the past two days, we hiked about 19 miles and hit a couple of big milestones.  First of all, we completed another "statesworth" of hiking, crossing over from Massachusetts into Vermont.  That means that we have thus far hiked all of the AT in 11 states, with only 3 more (Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) left to complete.  That feels pretty excellent.  Also, we broke out the big packs and did our first overnight on the trail for this jaunt on the AT.  We hiked a little over 14 miles on the first day, and about 4 the second.  

Hiking past a giant beaver dam.  We were actually hiking about a foot *below* the water level.  Those beavers are clever engineers! 

    We had more great weather for our overnight trek, though it was quite a bit hotter than it has been.  The creeks and streams are very, very low, if existent at all, due to the prolong dry spell the entire eastern half of the US seems to be experiencing right now, so we made sure to carry extra water.  The place we ended up making camp for the night was actually just uphill from a nice stream and we had our dinner by the water.

Riverside Dining.

    We made our camp for the night in the general vicinity of a shelter, though we didn't stay in the shelter itself.  I believe that except for the shelters in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park over Memorial Day, it was the most crowded shelter we've ever seen.  I'm still surprised by how many Northbound thru hikers are already up here in Vermont.  I commend them on their fleetness of foot.  In talking to them, they seem to average about 25 miles a day.  I pulled off 14 and some change, and I was beat and ready for camp.

Camp Nano

   Overnight, things cooled off pretty drastically, and I was glad I had my sleeping bag, which I had considered leaving behind in favor of a lighter, sheet-like "sleeping sack."  After some surprisingly good sleep (all sleep must seem good after you walk 14 miles), we woke up early and made it to our rendezvous point in time to meet Trail Angel for a delicious late breakfast of omelets at a local restaurant.  We were also able to clean up, do some exploring and enjoy both an AT documentary that was playing in a nearby town (complete with an appearance from one of the filmmakers) and a concert by an alternative loop-pedal musician.  Camping and culture - the AT has it all.

"The Green Tunnel" - pretty representative of the hiking we've been doing recently. 

Down the Mountain

Good Morning from Mount Greylock.

      Today, after another pretty short hike, we made it down the North side of Mount Greylock.  Amicus and Trail Angel got some amazing pictures of sunrise from the summit, and we had homemade blueberry muffins at the lodge for breakfast.  I can't even begin to say how lucky we've been with the weather so far.  Today was yet another perfect hiking day thought it was a little warmer than it has been.

Leaving the summit. 

   
   The hiking was mostly downhill in the woods with a few vistas along the way.  It was a pretty steep descent with much of the trail covered in roots and rocks, so I was glad that it was dry.  We met a few people on the trail, most of whom seemed to be going up rather than down.  When we got to the base of the mountain we did a short road walk to meet up with Trail Angel.  Today, we spent the afternoon moving our "base camp" a little further north in preparation for next week's stretch of hiking.  We had lunch and dinner at really great local dives, which is one of our favorite parts of the "Trail Experience." I'm happy to have conquered both sides of Massachusetts's highest peak, and it looks like there's going to be some serious hiking done over the next few days, so stay tuned!

Enjoying a view on the descent of Greylock.

On Top of Mount Greylock

 View of the top of Mount Greylock...from halfway up Mount Greylock.

   Today was another short day of hiking, with a little over 7 miles under our feet.  The highlight (and really the only goal of the day) was climbing Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts.  It stands about 3,400 feet tall and has a war memorial at the top.  We planned to give ourselves lots of time to make it up this peak, since it's been awhile since the only mountains I've conquered lately are mountains of medical memorization.  To my pleasant surprise, we made much better time than I anticipated, taking a few breaks on the way up but not suffering too much.  It was another gorgeous day out, so I could hardly complain.  We were in the woods until we reached the summit, which greeted us with some wonderful views. 

View of the top of Mount Greylock...from the top of Mount Greylock.  In front of the War Memorial.  89 steps to the top with 360 views out of narrow windows.    

 

View from the summit...complete with hang-glider about to launch.  He actually never did launch.  Apparently the winds weren't right.  But his hang-gliding companion managed to launch before this gentleman suited up. 

 
    Since we made fairly good time to the summit, we were able to enjoy our lunch with the views and the breeze.  Trail Angel met us at the top and we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches, courtesy of our good trail friend and master beekeeper Hooter.  Tonight is also pretty special because we are spending the night at the Bascom Lodge on the summit.  It's a recently renovated stone building owned by the state of Massachusetts but privately run.  There was a presentation by some ladies from the local Botanical Society about the various historical gardens in the area, and we had dinner in the lodge's restaurant while we spent some time talking to some locals and fellow travelers.  All in all a successful day at the roof of Massachusetts.
   

Goodnight from Mount Greylock. 

Searching for Motivation

Nano and Amicus starting another day on the MA AT.

     Today was a rather short day, hiking wise.  We only hiked about 9 miles, but it was another beautiful day in the Massachusetts forests.  The day was also short on energy for me.  For some reason, I felt like I was dragging all day.  The trail wasn't too difficult today, and it definitely took me longer to hike those 9 miles than it should have.  Maybe there's a disconnect between my mind and my body right now.  My mind says "Hey, let's do this!" and my body says "Wait, I thought we discussed this.  I thought we are all about solitary time in questionably lit and quiet rooms surrounded by medical textbooks now.  Let's not."  I know we'll all get on the same page soon.  I think the first few days of something like this are always the most difficult.  Whatever my muscles might say right now, I'm so glad I'm here.
      We hiked past a very large pond full of lillypads and bullfrogs.  The pond was so calm you could see the reflection of the clouds on the surface.  The bullfrogs were croaking, and it was the middle of the day.  I'd love to hear what that pond sounds like at night.

Bullfrog Pond

  During our hike, we passed two work crews out doing maintenance on the Trail.  I can't even imagine how much work it must take to keep 2,100+ miles (or even 1 mile) of trail maintained so well.  The AT experience surely wouldn't be as wonderful without them.  Towards the end of our hike for the day, we were on the lookout for something called "The Cobbles," which was supposed to have a nice view.  We passed something that we thought was it, but it was so heavily wooded that there wasn't really a view.  We thought it was rather anticlimactic, but hiked on.  We almost missed The Cobbles, because we later realized it was on a bit of a side trail.  I was so glad we took a minute to go off the beaten path, because the view was definitely worth it.
     

MA Valley View

     Since it was a pretty short hiking day, we got done at a decent hour and were able to spend some time thinking about how we're going to approach the next week of hiking, which looks like it might be pretty tough.  We had some delicious tomatoes from home for supper and even got to explore the area a little, which is always fun.

Beautiful old Victorian house in town.  It looks like something from a Zombie movie.  

Treats of all sorts.

Paper Factory in Dalton, MA.  Apparently this is where the paper for US currency is made.

    Today was another beautiful day on the AT.  We hiked about 11 miles today, all of it in the shade of the woods.  It was about 80 degrees again.  Another perfect hiking day.  This day was a great one because it was full of treats.  Before we started our hike, we visited the home of "The Cookie Lady," who lives about 100 yards from the AT.  She and her husband have been serving homemade cookies to weary hikers for 30 years.  Last year, they said they dished out over 1,500 cookies.  They also give out water and provide a yard for camping for those that need it.  Thats some serious Trail Magic right there.

Trail Angel and Nano at the Cookie Lady's house. 

     Over the course of our 11 mile hike, we got to enjoy our first panoramic view of this section.  Since the hiking yesterday (and most of today) was in the thick woods, it was so nice to turn the corner and walk out to open sky.

Enjoying the view.

    We also passed a particularly interesting area that had been completely destroyed by beavers.  All of the trees within about 30 square yards (that we could see) had been completely chewed up and bore the distinctive marks of beaver teeth.  We climbed a couple of small hills and passed through some swampy ground, grabbing lunch on a rock in the middle of the woods.  Part of our hike today passed right through one of the small local towns, and Trail Angel met us and walked with us for a bit.  That was a treat too.  To top it all off, we got to go have some tasty Italian food and see "A Chorus Line" at the local theater.  True trail treats indeed.  

Sea of ferns.