Date: 2012-08-04
From: Upper Goose Pond Cabin

To: Dalton, MA; The Birdcage Hostel
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: haze

We woke up in the morning to a cooked breakfast. The volunteer caretakers were making blueberry pancakes for all of the hikers. The blueberries were provided by SOBO hikers who packed them in from what was to be my lunchtime destination, The Cookie Lady. Her blueberry farm was about 10 miles from the cabin. Those 10 miles were more rocks, roots, and PUDs. A short walk down the road and I got to her farm. She had a picnic bench out back for the hikers to sit, and every time a hiker showed up, one of her children brought out free cookies. I also bought three cans of soda from them. It was a great lunch! John Wayne was there when I arrived as well as several SOBO hikers. John Wayne and I left at the same time, and we made it our goal to get to Dalton by 5pm. We booked it the first few miles, but then I had to slow down.Along the way, I met another SOBO who said the trail was perfectly flat for 6 miles with no ups and a couple downs. That dirty liar. I felt cheated by every uphill. And then, to top it off, a few miles before town, I met 3 SOBO section hikers and they told me that it was straight downhill to town. As I hurried on in excitement, the trail kept going down and down, following a good sized stream. I presumed this meant that I would be following this stream right into town. About two tenths of a mile after the SOBOs, the trail then took an immediate right and started going straight uphill. Somehow, these doofuses forgot about an entire mountain they just went over (it was a 500 foot climb) in two tenths of a mile. I could still see them through the leaves as I was climbing this mountain. From that moment on, I swore off ever asking a SOBO for information on the trail ahead. They all lie. Just plain lie. I¢m not the only NOBO who felt this way either. You must really have to have some screws loose to try to thru-hike SOBO. (In reality, I¢m sure they thought we were all dirty liars too. Unsurprisingly, you don¢t really notice downhills as much as you do uphills.)I found John Wayne at the edge of the woods before the trail went straight into town. He was enjoying some apple juice and cookies hidden in a bush. More Trail Magic! Then together, we walked to the Shell station in town and had the employee call Rob Bird. Rob is the manager of this FULL-SERVE gas station. How this place stays in business, I have no idea. It has no convenience store. They ONLY sell gas. And there¢s a self-serve Exxon station across the street. Who voluntarily tips someone to pump gas for them? Rob is also the owner of The Birdcage, a hostel in Dalton, MA. He refuses to advertise his place in any of the guides. Everyone comes to him via word of mouth. He opens his entire house to thru-hikers and genuinely welcomes hikers in as family. All the SOBOs told us about this place and John Wayne and I were grateful for his generosity.Way back in NC, at Spivey Gap, Napalm and his buddy Dingleberry had regaled us with tales from their thru-hike the previous year. One of Napalm's longer stories was how he had gotten Lyme Disease from a tick on his privates a few days after crossing into Virginia. He had hiked for a month straight with fever, chills, and achiness all over. When he got to the Cookie Lady's house, he knew he needed serious help, and so he stumbled by road all the way to Dalton, which wound up being a significantly longer distance. When he stumbled into town looking like hell, Rob Bird happened to be driving by. Rob took him in, and brought him to the urgent care and was able to talk them into charging him practically nothing for the tests and antibiotics. Rob took great care of him over the course of a week while the antibiotics started to kick in. (As an addendum, now that the Birdcage is done, Rob is living in Tennessee and Napalm is letting him store stuff at his house until he finds a permanent residence in the area, hopefully near the trail.)There¢s another hostel in town that is advertised in the guides run by Tom Lavardi. Supposedly, there¢s a lot of bad blood between the two of them. Both have made serious accusations about the other to hikers staying at their hostels. However I never met a hiker who had a bad word to say about either place. Shortly after arriving, Rob took all the hikers staying there out to an AYCE buffet restaurant. It felt good to see how much more I could eat than the SOBOs. I guess hiker hunger takes longer than 620 miles to fully set in. After returning from our gluttonous trip, many hikers stayed up late into the night. Rob Bird stayed up with them doing laundry for us and giving mohawks to several of the hikers. I wisely decided to pass on the mohawk and hit the hay for my long day tomorrow.