Date: 2003-07-08
From: Salisbury, CT

To: Hemlocks Lean-to, MA
Miles today: 14.2

It rained last night. Actual rain. We were under a roof, so I cheered - let it rain. The rocks will be slick today, but it didn't rain enough for muck.Today, we leave behind our slacking ways and return to the albatross, er, burden of the pack. Lupe sent us off with a huge hiker's bacon, egg and potato breakfast. Derrick and Lupe drove me and Itchy back to the Trail, after some post office business. I sent ahead some of my clothes, now that I believe I can safely declare summer is here. To Hanover, NH went my fleece pants, my long-sleeved shirt, my toboggan cap and gloves.The family is worried about Itchy, how thin he is. Lupe asks me if he's okay out there. I tell her he hikes as strongly as I do, for what that's worth. She worries, though.Saying good-bye at the Trailhead, I get a big, long hug from Lupe. "You two look out for each other," she whispered.It's hot, hot, hot today. We get a late start, at 10:45 am, due to my crush of chores. I did manage to reserve a rental car with unlimited miles for my brother's wedding on the 19th, thanks to his friend Dale who trolled the Internet mercilessly on my behalf. He got me a great deal. We haven't gone a mile when we see some coke cans in a seep above us, on a ledge back in the bushes. Only a thru-hiker would think they were Trail magic, not trash. I crawl through the wildrose, and they are - Trail magic!Later, up on Race Mountain, we find out Jester put them there on his way out of town.We had a strong hike, right off the bat, up Lions Head Mt. We are going over 2,000 feet lately. It's good to be getting back in the mountains, out of the lowlands. The water quality is improving too.I find myself hiking surprisingly strong again, a pleasant discovery. I guess this rest business actually works. We are cooking early on, right up the mountain on this hot day.We're going so strong we charged right past adjacent shelter and up another "Bear" Mt.Near the top... blueberries! I drop my pack on the spot and start picking. These are among the sweetest I've tasted yet. Itchy comes up from behind."This is not the top," I tease him as he draws close. "Keep going. No reason to stop here..."He laughs, and picks a few of his own berries. Really, they are everywhere. It takes me a long time to do the last half-mile to the summit. Mmmmm, blueberries....Once there, I discover a huge pile of carefully stacked rock. This is Connecticut's high ground, and they put this weighty structure here to note that fact.We climb down Bear Mt.'s dizzying, knee-crushing descent, full of butt-slides and perilous rock faces. "It got my attention," said Itchy. Only .6 miles below the summit, we cross a creek that is the CT/MA line, and enter our 11th state.For a while, we walk on a pine carpet alongside a rocky, refrigerated creek, and we splash ourselves frequently. At one point, I sit in a cold pool. It really helps to be here in the hottest part of the day.We pass a camp group with two hikers down. Two teenagers were prostrate with heat exhaustion. We offered help, water, anything, but were waved on.We have two hard climbs left before we can rest - one, the first, is Race Mountain. And when we come out onto a rocky overlook, panting, into the cooling breezes and lovely vista, it comes out of our mouths thusly: wow!Jester is there already. He looks at our sweaty faces and laughs. "You get what you pay for," he says. Some 20-25 black buzzards go wheeling past, cruising the thermals. "They look like guys on motorcycles, wheeling around like that."On the profile map, Everett Mt. looks like a steep little pimple there at the end of the day. From the top of Race, it looks huge and impossibly far away. I snap a shot of Jester pointing at it.We heard thunder booming in the distance, and saw a thunderhead billowing up to space. Maybe we should camp low? But we never found low, and in the end charged right up Everest's steep, stony flanks and over the top.Jester got on at Bear Mt. He is trying to finish the AT. He agrees with me that this is the hardest physical thing he's ever done, and he's half my age. "The hard part is going full out physically, day after day, he says. "It's almost as bad as a job."Except there are no days off and no paid benefits, I remind him. No employees' john."No AC either," he agrees. The final leg is through a dark grove of hemlocks, sound hushed from all the needles. It would be a dark camp. We find the shelter, aptly name The Hemlocks, and it has bunks. Tom of Texas and Scott, sectioners, are here too. Scott is thinking he'll do a thru-hike next year. He wears a T-shirt that says Real men don't need A.C. Go Scott! The bugs are bad, so I am turning in.