Massachusetts AT Day 3 (4/20/21)

You would never think that sleeping in a motel would involve hearing more snoring than sleeping in a tent near a bunch of other tents, but that’s exactly what happened. I nicknamed my motel neighbor Buzzsaw because his snoring came right through the motel walls.

I knew that this was going to have to be a big day, so I set my alarm for 4:30 AM and got on the trail at 5:25. It was so early that the sun wasn’t up yet, which meant hiking by headlamp. This would have been no problem with my day hiking headlamp, but my backpacking headlamp is more for use around camp than on trail. It didn’t help much, but the sky soon lit up and made it irrelevant.

There was a tough climb up Becket Mountain early in the day, but I knew that after that the terrain got a lot easier and I hoped to make big miles. I knew that if I could get 28 miles into Cheshire (which would smash my previous record of 22.4), I would put myself in good position to summit Greylock the next day before the weather got too bad.

I stopped at a shelter for a snack early in the day and met Country Roads, another section hiker. I‘ll bet you can’t figure out what state she was originally from. It was kind of funny because she was in the loft above me and at first I couldn’t figure out where her voice was coming from. She asked me to sign her pack, which I obligingly did. I thought that was a cool way of creating a hiker yearbook of sorts. I couldn’t stay long to chat, though, because I had to make miles.

A few miles later I took my first fall on trail this trip. I was hiking along and my foot got caught on a root. I twisted around, and my left leg came down in a mud puddle. I only got a couple scrapes on the hand, but I had to use some of my water to try to clear some of the mud. Thankfully, it seemed to work and my pants and shoes were relatively clean looking at the end of the day. You know, for pants and shoes that had already been on trail for three days.

That incident was also the first time I used my medical kit in a while. I may have been overexcited and over cleaned. First I used hand sanitizer, then I used an alcohol wipe, then I use Neosporin, and then I finally put a Band-Aid on it.

One of the cool things about that section of trail is that there were these tiny little flowers next to the trail, and whenever you walked through a lot of them, they put off this really pretty smell. I don’t know what they were, but I will post a picture of them below in case anyone wants to identify them.

There’s an Irish song that I listen to called The Rattlin’ Bog. It’s one of those songs where it keeps repeating itself, and it gets longer each time. It’s a fun song, but the reason I bring it up here is because the entire trail seemed like a bog today, at least in the early part of the day. There was lots of mud and it was slowing me down significantly, which was problematic, given that I was trying to make big miles.

Some podcasts helped pass the time, and soon I was in a rhythm. When I got to mile 15, I noticed that the wind had picked up significantly. I was a bit worried about that, because I didn’t want tomorrow’s storm system coming in early. Still, there was nothing I could do about it, so I just kept hiking.

One thing that was interesting is that I realized that the neck and shoulder problems I have been dealing with weren’t coming from where I thought they were coming from. I thought they were coming from the new pack, but as it turned out, they’re actually being caused by my hat. I noticed that they only showed up when I put my hat on. I think what’s going on is that when my hat is on, I crane my neck differently in order to see around the brim, and that causes the neck and shoulder problems.

I stopped for lunch at Kay Wood shelter. This was the shelter I was originally planning on stopping at today, a solid 17 miles into the hike. When I got there, I met a friendly guy and we chatted for a while. Unfortunately, the chatting was difficult at first, because he needed hearing aids and didn’t have them in. Thus, every time I said something, I just got “huh?” in return. Eventually he put them in, and then conversation got a lot easier. The shelter did sit in a beautiful place, with great views towards the forest.

After Kay Wood, I descended several miles into the town of Dalton. This part of the hike was surreal. I was technically hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but I was hiking down suburban streets. The white blazes were on telephone poles. It was actually making my feet hurt, because the shoes I use, which are trail runners, are designed to be used in the woods, and they don’t do well on pavement.

After Dalton, I had the first big climb that I had done since Becket Mountain, as I had to ascend Crystal Mountain. It really wasn’t that bad, because after the initial ascent it was basically a ridge. I knew that all I had to do was get over Crystal Mountain, and I would drop down into my destination for the day, the town of Cheshire.

On my way down in the Cheshire, there was an opportunity to visit a scenic vista called Cheshire Cobble. I wasn’t sure how far off trail I would have to go to get to the view, so I bypassed it. Then on the way down the mountain, I ran into a couple who were hiking up to Cheshire cobble. The wife told me I was really missing out by skipping Cheshire cobble, but I explained to her that I had already hiked 27 miles that day, and she understood.

Finally, I reached my destinations for the day, the Father Tom campsite. This place was pretty amazing. It was an AT campsite in the town of Cheshire, and it had lots of facilities. It had a place to charge electronics, its own water source in the form of a stream, a pump connected to the town water supply, and a picnic table. Plus there was plenty of grass to lay your tent out on. The only thing it was missing was a privy. Apparently there’s normally a Port-a-Potty there, but I guess it’s not there at the moment due to Covid.

My dinner for the night was Hungarian Goulash. It was one of my favorite backpacking meals so far, and I will definitely be eating it again. Dessert was Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs with white chocolate.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but I can also testify that necessity is the mother of big hiking days. If it wasn’t for the need to get close to Greylock, I never would have done a 28 mile day. Now that I have, I’m proud of myself for doing what I wasn’t sure I would be able to. I guess it just goes to show that you can’t take flight until you spread your wings.