Ursa Minor
¤
An unexpected appearance by the demigod of the
AT.
Williamstown MA to Great Barrington MA
October
inspires thoughts of falling leaves and autumnal color, with
Massachusetts and Vermont nearing peak.
In Massachusetts, bus service solves the shuttle issue, so we're back on
the familiar road the Berkshires, passing through the quaint
Stockbridge of Alice's Restaurant fame (a song that's now part of
our annual Thanksgiving ritual), hoping to relax in some charming
New England B &B before starting our hike.
9/30 Williamstown MA - Wilbur Clearing Lean-To (3
miles)
"The heights by great men reached and kept
were not attained by sudden flight,
but they, while their companions
slept,
were toiling upward in the night."
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
As we reach Williamstown darkness is falling
fast, as is the temperature; and our search for lodging begins.
The plan crashes to a halt as we find all accomodations
totally sold out, sending folks such as ourselves many miles in
search of alternatives (the result of a weekend event at the campus here).
Our only unsavory choice is to mount
up our gear for the 3 mile climb to the first lean-to.
Parking at the Greylock Community Club with permission from the
bartender (and his final admonition to "stay warm"), we disappear
into the night.
We're off at 7:00 pm, with spirits
high as we head down the street, although they quickly diminish
in the woods. Williamstown lies in a bowl, with a generous climb
out in all directions (recalls my first flight into here, on a
beautifully clear winter morn over a pristine snow-covered
landscape), and as we start the climb, the dark and the ascent
quickly conspire against us. We wait too long getting out
flashlights, and suddenly find we've lost the trail,
clueless even which direction to look for the
widely-spaced blazes. Now a little scared, we
press the flashlights into service, a short search finding a blaze again.
Coleen prefers I carry the light so she can use both poles, but
this proves insufficient, as she tires and stumbles
behind me. She's badly discouraged, but finally the trail finally reaches the summit.
After a minute to survey the
breathtaking night overlook of Williamstown, we turn down the trail for
what the guidebook calls a "short
distance" to the shelter trail. This proves
fanciful - it's actually a long descent through a red cedar
grove before finally reaching the trail, with shelter finally moments ahead
Soon the smell of wood
smoke and the sight of a roaring fire permeate the woods. Leaving
the path, we bushwack straight to the fire,
finding a group of 5 young men, speaking both in
Russian and English; and offering hospitality in the form of with
cognac and kielbasa. Tempting indeed, but we first need to
find the shelter (though I hope to get back to them on their offer),
finding the area littered with tents, and fires on the way down.
The shelter's fairly full, but its
occupants bid us join them, though it looks more comfortable to tent behind
the shelter. Over dinner we get
acquainted with our shelter mates - 2 weekenders, and 3
southbounders who we'll find to be Caveman & Spike (a couple)
and Red Horse (met Caveman on Katahdin 7/12). I stoke up their
dying fire as we dine, and after chatting,
we retire at 11:15.
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10/1 Wilbur Clearing - Cheshire Cobbles (13
miles)
" He deserves Paradise who makes his
companions laugh."
The
Koran Sleep comes late, with the
"Mad Russians" up breaking firewood and yelling well past midnight,
but eventually we nod off, being the first ones up the next morning.
Over breakfast we find Caveman the jester of the group, having
committed to memory the text of every Monty Python movie made, and
performing same with an excellent English accent. Spike's rendition
is almost as good, and they send us off chuckling (Caveman has a
great story about renting one of his two hiking poles in Maine).
After catching up on all our trail friends in the register,
we write a short tome before departing at 09:38, the trio a few
minutes ahead.
We start up Mt. Williams,
just catching the trio before stopping for pix, the valley
below filled with cloud. It's a beautiful Sunday morn as we approach
Mt Greylock, a solitary mountain whose appearance is said to have
inspired the writing of Moby Dick (in winter it resembles a white
whale from Melville's desk). Just as the climb
steepens, we see the tower at the summit, passing a group
of weekenders taking a nature hike on our final assault (stopping
for a quick taste of the ripe mulberries here). The summit's crowded
with tourists - some photographers shooting a teen girl's Sr. pix,
and hosts of Spandex-clad bikers finishing up a rally here. It's
crowned by a stone tower as a memorial to our fallen veterans - we
find the trio here (Coleen dubs them the Three Amigos), and after a
brief chat we climb to the top of the memorial, a long climb up a
dizzying spiral staircase.
Inspired by the view,
we head to the Bascom Lodge, finding the Amigos
consuming their 2nd burger each. We join them for an early lunch,
with southbounder Bill, who's spent the night in a work-for-stay
program. We find Caveman and Spike are a
couple, she having joined Caveman and Red Horse at Hanover NH on
their way through. She's from Pittsburgh, having met Caveman in Grad
School, seeking degrees in Drama Therapy (I had the same look on my
face too, but they're licensed therapists). They've just
graduated, and sent out a host of resumes hoping to start work after
the year's end, by which time they expect to have finished the
trail. |
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| Clouds fill the valleys below in the
early morn |
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| After a long, satisfying lunch we head
down the mountain, quickly passed by Bill, and soon after by the
Amigos, who'll leapfrog us all day. The trail alternates between
hemlock, spruce, and fir forest at the higher altitudes, with
hardwoods lower, and considerable bogs and puncheons still lower.
After a couple hours we pass them at the side trail to the Mark
Noepel Shelter, where they're taking a break and soliciting info
from two other hikers there. They plan to camp at Cheshire Cobbles,
a rock outcropping with a magnificent view we'll encounter this
evening. This sounds good, and we push on towards the town of
Cheshire, the last few miles seeming an eternity. In an autumnal
pasture just prior, I the trio pass us again;
though crossing a small knoll, we see them ahead stopped dead in
their tracks before a small herd of cattle. They look as if
they've never seen a cow before, almost recoiling in terror as I
walk up to the cows to show their good nature. They relax a bit
after this, and reluctantly let me photograph them there on their
camera before pushing on to town.
Finally we come to
the outskirts of Cheshire, all headed towards a convenience
store, for a cold DC and water refill (the Amigos now
well ahead, with a mail drop and with other town errands to run). By
the time we pull up, they're long gone, and we guess they've
gotten some trail magic from a passer-by. Coleen and I down a 2-liter bottle
of DC on our pleasant Sunday afternoon walk through town. There's a
large monument of a cheese press in the city center just before the
post office, and we get a good view of the Cobbles protruding from
the hillside ahead. Some of the locals are chatty as we
pass, but it's near enough to dark to impel us forward.
The last turn out of town takes us totally by surprise, the
guidebook stating it heads into the woods via a private drive. We
wander around this house for 10 minutes before Coleen finally finds
a blaze further down the road, and we're back on the trail again, no
help to the guidebook. A moderate climb takes us to
the Northern Cobble, accessed by a side trail. We guess the Amigos
stayed in town for the night (and don't know where they'd camp anyway),
so we bypass this one for the western cobble, situated right on the
trail. We don't see any of the allegedly numerous campsites, and
soon we're on the western cobble at sunset, still needing a level
place to tent. The trail turns downward into dark forest, but unable
to find a good campsite on the cobble, we decide we'd better
continue. It darkens quickly, and we take occasional forays into the
woods at possible sites, without much luck.
Finally we find
a level spot with a sitting log nearby, sufficient for
our late arrival. We start dinner and look for
rocks for a fire pit; laughing at the notion that this is the only
time on the AT we'll ever want for rocks. Soon we have a blazing
fire, (lots of birch bark here for quick light as needed), and after
dinner, Coleen erects a small drying rack for her bra and socks as I
work on my journal by the fire. We get the food hung and the fire
dispersed, settling into bed at 10:15.
10/2 Cheshire Cobbles - Pittsfield Rd tentsite (14.9
miles)
"When the Himalayan peasant meets the
he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will
often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the
peasant tooth and nail
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male."
Rudyard Kipling A deer stumbling
through our site wakes
us briefly in the pre-dawn hours before we're finally up for good at
a foggy 07:10. As we head out, the fog
slowly lifts passing the glassy Gore Pond, stopping to check out
the register there before finding a huge boulder for our am
break. The Amigos pass us here, having camped right on the
face of the Northern Cobble, and now headed for Dalton, where they
need to do laundry. We leapfrog
them again as they filter water, heading to Dalton
in search of town food. It's a long walk through this slice of small-town America,
but finally we reach the heart of the quaint but busy
town. The white
blazes take us past Duff & Dell's, where we
stop for sandwiches and chips in our window booth
as we plot a strategy for a town night in Lee tomorrow.
Before we get
away however, we run into a couple of gents outside, one seeming the
demeanor of the town mayor (sporting a BSA emblem on his lapel). He
chats a bit about the AT, introducing another friend who's active in
scouting and thru-hiked in 1960. It was a fun chat, and the
hospitality wasn't yet over, as we soon passed Tom Levardi's house,
obviously trail-friendly from the sign out front showing the mileage
to Katahdin, along with a message board on the front porch and a
sign pointing to the water tap (he lets hikers camp on his porch and
yard). After short chat with Tom (who tells us of some
bear problems at the Oct Mt shelter) we return to the forest,
initially climbing Day Mt., with a good view
of Dalton.
We're passed by Bill (he did laundry in
Dalton), and just as
boredom's setting in, I hear a thrashing in the woods to our right, and
about 50 yards out, see a large shape walking through the trees.
"Look, a deer", I whisper to Coleen, getting the reply - "there's a
bear there too". Moving a little to one side I get a good look at what is
a fairly substantial adult bear, although long before I can get
a camera, he takes a short look at us and runs off into the
woods. It's a big moment though - our 1st wild bear on the AT. It's
funny - it's just a bear, but the black bear is so revered on the
trail that it's a genuine rite of passage seeing our first one. I
guess after this we won't be impressed until he rifles through our packs
some night.
After our pm break we turn uphill through a large field of waist-high brown
ferns towards the summit of Warren Hill. It's a nice change of
terrain, but as we enter it we hear a conversation between two
unseen males ahead. Each time we stop and look, the voices stop, but
resume as we continue walking. Eventually they drift around to
our rear, though I remain a little suspicious, as we'll be camping
near here (though we're tempted to push on to the Oct. Mt shelter in
hopes of seeing more bears there). After the summit, we
descend into a tall stand of mature evergreens with bare understory
but a dense canopy - majestic with their long straight trunks.
From here we can
camp anywhere and still make a town night at Lee tomorrow,
but it's very marshy. We wander through
the bogs, hoping to camp at a stream crossing in a mile.
Finally we soon come on a gravel-bed stream with the
clearest water around and a small campsite
adjacent looks like our best bet - a small area with barely a tent space,
a sitting log, and a fire pit.
A few rocks from the steam
supplement the fire pit, the stream also being convenient for
washing and such, and it'd be great if only it had a
little more room. I get a quick laugh as Coleen loses a slipper in
the bog helping hang the bear bag (we take it seriously now), and
we relax with dessert and cocoa around the fire, turning in for
another beautiful clear night at 9:40. |
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10/3 Pittsfield Rd - Lee, MA (11.4
miles)
"Ships that pass in the night, and speak
each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in
the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one
another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a
silence."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow After a good
night's sleep and a quick breakfast, we're back
on the trail for the long parallel to Pittsfield Rd.
It's almost an hour before we cross it, on a level, but
muddy trail (recalls a note from Morningstar how the mud transforms
us all into acrobats of the trail). As the fog lifts we pass a
large beaver pond, and thence the October Mt Shelter,
finding a pack, but no sign of its owner until Bill finally
emerges from the privy (Coleen tries it later,
amazed he can stand it that long). We have a long chat with
him, finding that he started in Aug, heading southbound as far as he
can make it by his 12/20 deadline. He's a late riser, and likes to
linger around the shelters in the morning, making up the miles with
his quick pace and long days (or nights). |
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| A beautiful glassy pond, courtesy of
our friends, the beavers |
We follow him out after reading the
register (very few bear reports recently,
though one was the infamous "bear entering the privy" story - a
Kodak moment if there ever was one), the trail crossing Bald
Top Mt before descending back to another unnamed beaver pond.
There's considerable mud and a few rocks, and Coleen lags badly,
trying to keep her boots pristine. I take a few pix as I wait, and we
finally break for lunch at a large log by a rushing brook, Coleen a bit miffed at my pace.
After a
short and quiet lunch, Coleen immediately falls well behind again - I
cross a small local road, where the trail appears to turn
right, and head down that direction, buoyed by a couple of old
blazes on the trees. Soon the blazes end, and after trying a couple
alternatives, I return to the road crossing to see if Coleen has
come through yet. There's no sign of her, and my yelling several
times returns only silence. Now I notice a fresh
blaze across the road, the trail continuing straight ahead, although
it doesn't seem like I've been off long enough for her to have
passed this point, so I backtrack looking for her before
finally turning around and heading back south on the trail to catch
up. Now I'm feeling guilty now about pushing ahead, though we're
close enough to Lee that I can always check in, drop my pack, and
return. I hurry down the trail, occasionally yelling, but
with no sign of her ahead. I'm having doubts about not
going back further looking for her, but I push on, and soon
reach a rocky outcrop above a large lake. As I stop to take a pix I
see Coleen standing down by the lake, finding she's just been
waiting a few minutes.
The map shows this to be
Finerty Pond, just hazy enough to negate my attempts at fall pix
(I'm still looking for moose in the lakes, also without
success). The ball of Coleen's foot hurts badly, making our small
jump over Walling and Becket Mt's slow, the descent into Lee
even slower. Finally we emerge onto the
busy US-20 to find the Gaslight Motor Lodge immediately across the
road. It's a run-down motel, sandwiched between two busy
highways, but situated at the end of the beautiful Greenwater Pond,
and we pull up to the office only to find a Closed sign on the door.
There's no date or time, so we park on the picnic
table to wait, and soon notice a woman inside washing dishes. She
sees us and comes out to advise that they're closed indefinitely,
although we're welcome to use the pay phone.
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Coleen's immediately in tears, as the only easy
option appears to be
to go on to Goose Pond to camp. I suggest a hitch into town,
getting a tearful agreement, with the two of us heading across to
try. After about :15, with over 20 cars passing without a
hint of a hitch we give up and elect to try a cab. The Laurel
Hill Motel offers a good hiker rate, but with no one around to give
us a ride (they tried), we call the local cab company, the
operator saying he'll be out in :20. Just as I'm about to abort,
the cab driver pulls up - familiar with the hiker crowd,
and suggesting some dinner options. The town is far larger than I'd
imagined, with the Laurel Hill Motel sprawled out on a hill at the
far side of town. After paying an inflated $14 cab fare, we head
to the office, where the girl inside's been expecting us.
She's more than helpful, giving a good $45 rate for a
nice room with a queen-sized bed. It's wonderful, and Coleen
immediately starts a shower and bath as I consider dinner, settling on
an order to Pizza Hut as she soaks.
In no time we're clean
and dining on our pizza, watching tv (good cable, but pre-empted by
the 1st Presidential debate), and relaxing with the worst of our
gear washed and drying. It's wonderful, and after a bit
of the debate coverage, and the weather (deteriorating), we turn in warm and comfortable
at 11:00, nodding off immediately. |
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10/4 Lee - N Mt Wilcox Lean-to (15.6
miles)
"Solitude is painful when one is young, but
delightful when one is more mature."
Albert
Einstein The alarm finds us soundly asleep at 06:45, and
prep is easy, though several calls to Park Taxi fail to get
an answer. Brian (motel owner) offers to drop us when his wife's up
and around - most kind of him, and during the short wait we have
coffee, juice, muffins, and a leftover slice of pizza.
It's a great drive chatting with Brian, his hospitality far
exceeds expectations, and at the trail he vehemently refuses
any money. Our faith in the human spirit restored, we're afoot, with
a brief stretch of woods before crossing the Mass Turnpike, a busy
highway needing two separate bridges to cross, each fenced in like
the I-70 bridge in MD. The trail hops over the ridge before a
descent to the beautiful Goose Pond shoreline, resplendent in autumn
color peeking from between the conifers.
We
march through a series of beaver marshes as the sky gradually
clouds over, and soon after the am break we come to a beautiful
long bridge across Cooper Brook. After a few pix here, we continue
on this, our long mileage day, which we hope to take us all the way
to the Mt Wilcox shelter. Coleen's anxious about the mileage after
her feet's pummeling yesterday, but with the rain coming in this
afternoon, a shelter seems best. Besides, I've had her
replace her orthotics with some foam under her arches, which seems
to have cured yesterday's pain.
After a hop over Baldy Mt we
descend to Tyringham Rd, the guide offering no hope of a town meal,
so we break here for lunch, eating quickly as the promised
rain begins. The trail here crosses the Hop Brook floodplain, with
puncheons taking us much of the way
across. The now moderate rain darkens the afternoon skies, putting a
very autumnal cast on the changing foliage around; and we
nostalgically ponder life in the warm, dry, and lighted
farm houses as we walk by. Cobble Hill offers a side trail to the
Cobble, but we stay our course, hoping to reach the shelter at a
decent hour. |
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We descend towards Hop
Brook, with rain continuing on and off, and bringing the usual
orange efts and frogs out on the trail, and brightening the color of
the leaves on which we walk, often filled with
brilliant reds. Several times today we walked through areas of
overpowering yellow color, although it'd be difficult to capture the
effect on film. Hop Brook is a swift torrent, with some picturesque
farms across, and soon after pass the Shaker Campsite, finding an
appropriate log for our pm break. We continue up and down over
mountains and through marshes, and soon cross Beartown Rd, signaling
our final ascent to the shelter.
We reach the trail to the
Lean-to as expected at 5:30,
though it's longer than we'd hoped, and substantially more downhill.
Finally it levels in a small bog, followed by the shelter, old
and dark, but large, with no obvious porcupine damage. There's a
few nests in the rafters, but no talk in the register of
mouse problems, and with the rain, it's a no-brainer.
The floor is far from level, but by sleeping
sideways our Thermarests cover the gaps in the boards. Firewood
is well picked over, but I get an initial pile, and with a break in
the rain light it off - easier than expected. There's a stream
adjacent for water, and the rain lets up in the evening, with Coleen
sitting out by the fire as I catch up on my journal entries.
After cocoa and coffee we fly the food, turning in
at 10:00. Shortly after we do we're awakened by what sounds like a
porcupine gnawing on wood, but the flashlights show nothing, neither
do the sounds stop (as mice would) We get back to bed
(the stars actually coming out), treated to this same sounds
several times throughout the night.
10/5 N Mt Wilcox Lean-to - Greater Barrington MA
(5.1 miles)
"Traveling is like gambling: it is
always connected with winning and losing, and generally where it is
least expected, we receive more or less what we hoped
for."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
It's a cold and
drizzly morning, but with the shelter to ourselves, prep is easy,
getting out of camp at 08:20. With a short morning ahead, we take
our only break at the Mt Wilcox South Lean-to, a mere hour
ahead just off the path, and
a good place escape the waning rain and peruse the register.
It's been very solitary since we pulled ahead of the Amigos and Bill
at Dalton, and we search in vain for any notes from them. As we sit
here a chipmunk cautiously approaches to the fire pit, so we throw
him some gorp, watching him sneak a piece at a time when he
thinks we're distracted. |
| Mom always said, "It's just a little
rain - you won't melt". |
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| Beaver Lodge
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It's a quick hike through
more small mountains and marshes, and by 11:30
we're at Mass 23, from where we hope to hitch into Great Barrington
to catch the bus to our car. We put our thumbs to the breeze, and
incredibly, the 1st car along, a small white Corolla pulls over
immediately, the cute Christina offering to take one of
us, as her friend pulls over in another car to take the other. She has a
cello in the rear seat, but gladly lets me stow my pack in the
trunk; and we're off, Coleen riding with Sachi
in the 2nd car.
We're both dumbstruck at our good luck, and
they're interesting folks, if a bit free-spirited. She longs
to be out hiking (though Sachi tells Coleen otherwise), and we talk
about her cello playing (she performs with a fellow playing a
Celtish drum), my job, and a recent trip of hers to Hawaii, where
she met Sachi. Sachi is driving cross-country, and she's
guiding him through the local area. They drop us downtown, where I
I phone the bus company (the
noon bell sounding from the church behind me) they tell me their
next departure is at noon! |
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| It's beautiful even underfoot
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| Our great fortune continues, the van
pulling up immediately - for our mere $3 each, we're able to go the entire
distance, albeit with 3 transfers. The small van transfers us at Lee to a full-sized
bus giving us a good chance to mix with the great unwashed. Our clientele include
some truly hefty folks up
front, one a self-appointed expert on the AT, explaining
to us the little-known fact that the trail requires a
ferry trip across Goose Pond by boat (you'd think we'd have noticed
this). Another vagrant-looking sort claims to have hiked the AT in
1990 from Springer to PA before running out of cash. There's also
the usual punkers in mohawks with all manner of studs and piercings
to add local color, and no one gives us so much as a 2nd
glance. Our car is intact, so with
scarcely a look back we make tracks for town food, changing clothes
as we drive (we're still using AT social mores, and the heavy rain
keeps other drivers' eyes on the road). After chili, coffee, and ice
cream we're restored again and ready for a long and rainy drive home
- at least this time our home is unscathed on arrival.
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