Date: 2016-07-15
From: Tom Levardi's Backyard / Dalton, MA

To: Crystal Mountain Campsite
Miles today: 4.2

Jul 15, 2016 - This morning is only the third morning on trail I have been hungover, but it was a doozy. Breakfast food was a necessity and it needed to be found quickly. Helton drove us to the Misty Moon Diner in the adjacent town of Pittsfield, MA where they had a breakfast food challenge: The Godzilla - a 12 egg omelette with 4 meats, 4 cheeses, and 8 different vegetables, home fries and 4 pieces of toast. All of that needed to be eaten in 30 minutes. I didn't have high hopes of finishing, but who am I to turn down a breakfast challenge of this magnitude? What would Ron Swonson do? The Godzilla came, saw and conquered. I managed to eat all 12 eggs, but all the other ingredients proved too heavy on an already fragile stomach. The omelette was out of this world delicious, but, honestly, even if I had just hiked 20 miles and did not feel like I had been hit by a truck, I still would have failed. That amount of breakfast food is just too heavy. The waitress gave me two ziploc bags so I could pack out the greasy goodness I had left over. After breakfast, Helton drove me to the outfitter so I could purchase my new pair of Kelty trekking poles. I also caved and snagged some bug spray because I was near the breaking point with the bugs. As soon as I returned to Tom's, I laid down in the shade of a large maple tree in his backyard and slept for a few hours. All of us were in pretty bad shape and were not ready to start hiking again. Finally, as 3 pm rolled around, we got our act together. Princess Peach, Great P, and I hiked a whopping 4.2 miles to the Crystal Mountain Campsite where we gave up and made camp. We justified our short day with the fact that we had hiked 17 days straight of at least 10 miles.After a campfire reheated Godzilla for dinner, I retired to my tent early to get some reading done. In the distance, I could hear a thunderstorm rolling in, but couldn't tell if it was headed our way. The forecast only had the chance of rain at 20%. All of a sudden, an intensely loud and long clap of thunder sounded right above our heads. Then the rain started falling. With dismay, I realized I made a rookie mistake by pitching my tent in a shallow, hard, dirt basin devoid of any dead leaves or cushion. The rain drops caused the dirt to bounce up and spray the netting of my tent. Puddles quickly formed around the bathtub floor of my tent and, as the rain started to fall harder, I realized I had a pretty big problem on my hands. The small puddles quickly grew into one large, muddy puddle that threatened to spill over the bathtub floor and into the interior of my tent. I pushed down and discovered the floor of my tent was literally floating. When my crocs and shoes literally floated away, it was time to make some moves as swimming seemed inevitable. I grabbed my rain jacket, opened the screen and stepped out of tent barefoot - the puddle completely submerged my foot up to the top of the ankle. Cursing, I grabbed both ends of my tent and lifted it with everything inside to transfer it to a bed of dead leaves nearby. I was careful to leave the rain fly draped over the interior, but everything was already wet. I turned around and cursed even louder - my pack was face down in the puddle and nearly submerged. I quickly grabbed everything and transferred it underneath my rain fly. When I went to re-pitch my tent, I realized the stakes were still in the ground under the puddle (I keep using the word puddle, but let's be real, it looked and felt like a small pond and rain was still falling). For almost 20 minutes, I stomped barefoot through the pond scraping up dirt trying to feel around for my stakes. I managed to find 3 and remembered Steel had given me an extra one that I kept stored in my pack. I finally managed to re-pitch my tent, but now that everything I owned was sopping wet, the plastic butts of my new trekking poles kept slipping on the plastic dimples of my tent. This issue and a large rock near my left stake caused my tent to collapse 3 times. I used small wads of leukotape and slid them between the butts of the trekking poles and the dimples of my tent, which, thankfully, did the trick. I crawled into my tent and used a microfiber towel to wipe up as much water as possible from my bathtub floor, my quilt, and my sleeping pad. I managed to get rid of a few puddles, but everything was still wet. Even the clothes I was wearing were dripping wet as I finally lay down and tried to relax. I told myself that the wetness kept me cool in the humid atmosphere of my tent. I also knew this would turn into a funny story eventually, which served to help lighten my mood. Despite the chaos, I managed to stay pretty calm during the whole affair with the exception of a few loud exclamations. The fact is, I set my tent up in a really stupid spot and should know better by now. As a result, I was unprepared for the unexpected rain and paid the price. It would certainly be an interesting morning. I slipped into a surprisingly good sleep as the rain continued to pound my rain fly.