Date: 2003-07-09
From: Dalton, Massachusetts

To: Thunderbolt Emergency Shelter
Miles today: 17.0

From Tom Levardi¢s house in Dalton, Massachusetts to the summit of Mount Greylock and the Thunderbolt Emergency Shelter. 17 miles. I got up early as usual around 5:00 and went ahead and started packing before everyone was awake. Before six everyone that was in the house and on the porch was up. I had slept on the front porch and Prince William had slept on the front porch too. Spiderman slept in his tent. Drew had slept under his tarp and his bug net on the side yard. I sat around and waited for everybody and we all walked down together down the street to Duff and Dell¢s restaurant for breakfast. This place had really cheap prices. Three dollars for breakfast with huge portions. I personally had three eggs and a plate full of home fries, sausage links and coffee. It was big servings of everything. We sat there until about 7:00 and ate. Then we said goodbye to Tom and started walking. The trail goes uphill for quite a distance and then back down again into a little town called Chesire. It goes directly through it right by the post office. It was amazing how quick you get there. I was at the post office by 10 minutes after 10. I went inside and got the backpack that Equinox had sent me to switch backpacks. It started raining just as I came into town. Shortly behind me was Draftrunner and then right behind her was Drew and Prince William and Spiderman. They all came in. I sat out there in the rain and packed my stuff up in the new pack. I packed up the other one and took it to the post office and sent it off. I also boxed the New Balance shoes and my hair net and set them priority to Hanover, New Hampshire. I want to keep them in a priority box so I can bump them ahead if I don¢t need them to one post office at a time without having to continue to mail it. Right next to the post office was this little building. I don¢t remember the name of the place. There¢s a very petite lady who lifts 5 gallon jugs of water over her head like they were made out of styrofoam. She ran a place, especially for the size, with wonderful goodies. Sundaes of any kind you wanted, smoothies, milkshakes, brownies, corndogs, hamburgers, all kinds of baked goods, sloppy joes and all kinds of drinks. Pepsi¢s, Cokes, Snapples. Spiderman, Draftrunner and I sat inside eating and waiting for it to stop raining. Once it appeared to at one point Draftrunner took off. Spiderman and I sat there for a little bit longer. I had a sloppy joe, 2 corndogs, a smoothie and a bottle of Pepsi. It had almost started raining so we took off. This was a very distinct uphill. A 2500 foot ascent up to the top of Mount Greylock. Of course it started raining immediately but it was pleasant because it had been so hot lately that the rain actually felt good. It cooled you down. The climb was no where as bad as I had expected. For 2500 feet it was pretty gradual for the most part. I caught up with Spiderman after a bit and passed him. Then fairly close to the summit, at the peak of Greylock, I came up on Draftrunner and just went ahead and walked in behind her. At the very summit of Greylock, which is at 3491 feet there is a really neat observation tower. It looks like a lighthouse. From the top of it you have a 360 degree view all the way around. You can look into 5 states. When we first got up there it was all fogged in from the rain. It was actually getting cold pretty fast. So, we went into Bascom Lodge instead and went to the snack bar which was about to close at 4:00. We ordered cheeseburgers and onion rings and coffee. By this time it was down right chilly outside and extremely foggy. Haven¢t even got the raincoats to walk outside to keep from getting cold. Sometime around 5:00 or so another thru hiker came through I had met before. A tall, skinny guy named Fly who said that somebody had been looking for us. He actually told us that at the post office in Chesire. He pulled in and Mud pulled in. Mud was the guy who had been looking for Spiderman and I. I thought he was days ahead because he was running fast. But apparently he took off a couple days in New York. So, we told everyone what Tom Levardi had told us¢¦that there was a shelter somewhere close to the summit that was an enclosed shelter with glass windows and four sides. He had told us it was an emergency shelter and we weren¢t supposed to be camping in it or sleeping in it. He said to go ahead and use it anyway. We could try because he didn¢t think anyone was going to worry about it. So, Spiderman went out first and I went out behind him. We sure enough found the shelter. It was right by the parking lot. A 5 minute walk from the Bascom Lodge itself. As far as shelters go this one was beautiful. Like I said it was completely enclosed and it had a central fireplace with four fireboxes 90 degrees from each other. Then 45 degrees from them and 90 degrees from the next one were tables that you could get your therma rest and lay down on. Mud, Spiderman, Draftrunner and myself immediately each took over a table and laid our stuff out. I guess we picked the wrong night to try and camp in a shelter that we weren¢t supposed to. We didn¢t get in trouble and no one threw us out or anything but a lot of people walked in. Mainly because there was a little event going on up in front of the lookout tower which was a bagpipe event of all things. Several hundred people had shown up with lawn chairs and little box lunches. They sat themselves out front there waiting for the bagpipers and the bagpipers came out and played. So, there were people milling around all over the place. I hung out and walked up to the top of the tower and looked down. I took some pictures, made some phone calls, went in and out of the lodge a couple of times. I just kind of sight saw the people and got Gatorades. I just did the tourist thing up there for a couple of hours. I bought Bill Bryson¢s A Walk In The Woods which I¢ve already read multiple times but I decided I should read it again just to kind of compare notes now that I know what my experiences are. I went back to the Thunderbolt Shelter and laid out. Everyone else had gone to bed early. I stayed up until about, I don¢t know, about 45 minutes later and read. I tried to read but the shelter was full of mice and they kept running around. One went running right across the table in front of my face. We had to get up and hang our food up to make sure that they didn¢t eat holes in it. I went to sleep around 9:30. Again, another beautiful day. Eating all day. A good walk. Good weather in terms of temperature. That¢s the way it was.