Date: 2018-08-11
From: Cheshire, MA

To: Wilbur Clearing Shelter
Miles today: 11.2
Weather: overcast clouds

At midnight eerie clown music played from across the road. It was so loud that it woke us up. After the music an animal started making screeching noises. It was a loud night. In the morning Scissors and I ate our Dunkin Donuts food. We pushed out of town to start the climb up to Mt Greylock.  The big climb of the day was 2800 feet. On the way up I got a message from Rosie saying he was in the next shelter.  Scissors and I decided to visit that shelter and take a break from the drizzle. Rosie was still sleeping in the shelter when I arrived. He looked pretty cold and was tired. I made some black cherry tea for Scissors and Rosie. It felt good to have a hot drink when the weather was getting colder. It started raining harder and harder. We decide to hang out there for awhile to wait out the rain. I didn't want wet shoes again. Rosie said Lupine was going to take off a few days to allow her feet to heal. She was going to Maine to go to the doctors to get them checked out. Rosie said he was going to wait for her to get back on the trail. He had a friend in Connecticut that he might crash with for the next few days. Scissors and I stayed there for 3 hours waiting for the rain to stop.  We left when it was still sprinkling. I had put plastic bags around my socks too keep them dry. Everyone thought I was crazy for doing it. Back on the trail it was mud and water city. It was hard not to put your foot in a lake of water on the trail. Luckily there were a lot of rocks to jump onto. My shoes got soaked but my feet were dry. I came to the access road to the top of My Greylock. It was already foggy and damp. There was a lodge at the top. I was looking forward to for food. I found Scissors at the lodge with the saddest face. They had closed the lodge for a private event. I bet they were hoping for good weather too. A family offered to drive us off the mountain to get something to eat. They probably thought we were starving the way we were acting. We declined their kindness and moved to the war monument tower. On clear days the tower had a beautiful glass light at the top. It was so foggy that we could hardly see the tower from 50 feet away. It materialized from the fog like some long forgotten structure. You could climb up the tower and look out over the valley. We didn't see anything. The inside of the tower was warm so we decided to eat some snacks and hang out. We told people that there wasn't a view as they climbed the stairs to the top. We packed up and headed out.On the way down from the tower we ran into the shelter that could only be used in emergencies. It was filled with Sobos staying for the night. We pushed on another 3 miles to the next shelter. The trail was the same as it was when we climbed it. We got to the shelter and there was an older man making food with two other hikers in the shelter. I put my pack down inside the shelter to keep it dry. The younger guy in the shelter told me to move it away from his stuff. He had just gotten water and I asked him where the water source was. He said just follow the blue blazes like every other shelter. Scissors asked him what his problem was since he was being really rude. He said he didn't appreciate people walking in being loud and noisy. It was 7 pm and we were just talking. We didn't understand what made him so mad. Magic and Big Red showed up and could feel the awkwardness. We all ended up setting up our tents in the rain instead of staying in the shelter. This guy is going to have a hard time on the trail since people always congregate at the shelters. I setup my tent for the first time on a wooden platform and had to figure out how to tighten down the rain fly. The bottom of my tent was already wet from the wet wood slats. I got the rest of my stuff together and made dinner at the shelter. Onyx and Butcher were there making dinner as well. They were going to stay in the shelter. We had a whole conversation about dehydrated food and alcohol stoves. The guy in the shelter didn't say anything. Probably because he saw that Onyx was a huge guy and didn't want to mess with him. I finished my dinner and headed back to the tent.Tonight my stuff is going to get wet.