Date: 2003-08-27
From: Camping nr Race Brook falls, Mass.

To: Great Barrington, Mass.
Miles today: 9.8
Weather: overcast clouds

My final day on the AT. I marked the occasion with my first hot breakfast in camp for ages, a pot of porridge (hot oatmeal) and a cup of green tea. ¢Bumpkin¢ is also a tea jenny. How cruel that we have found each other when I am about to leave. I wouldn¢t call this a godforsaken land, but tea drinkers need to stick together. We took most of the morning going up and over Mt. Everett and Jug End. Much of the way ran over smooth rock, like Race Mt., but with thickets of stumpy pitch pine crowding the path for long stretches. Their branches had very little give in them, the needles were quite tough, so scratches on arms and legs began to accumulate.   Walking over the top of Jug End, we met an interesting couple out for a day hike. He is 92 years old, his wife is much younger, possibly only in her eighties. They said they didn¢t get around as well as they used to! The descent from Jug End was very sharp and quite difficult (how had the old couple managed that? Were they airlifted in?). Towards the bottom, the surrounding woods were alive with the sound of young voices. We duly met groups of rock climbers either trying to work their way up the rock face below or already gathered on the Trail itself and preparing to tackle the face above. Beyond Jug End Road, we passed two lean-to¢s within two hundred yards of each other. ¢Chafe¢ was filtering water at the creek between the two shelters, so I dropped in briefly at the first of them to leave a farewell message. The register had been left by ¢Charity¢ who I haven¢t seen for at least three months. My message was brief, nothing much beyond wishing everybody good luck. The pen wasn¢t working properly and made it impossible to write very much. But, as I sat at the picnic table on this beautiful morning, amid the slivers and patches of sunlight cutting through the hemlocks all around this shelter, the truth was I couldn¢t really think of very much to say anyway.   When I woke this morning I had decided to get the most out of today. Not to spend time reflecting on all that had gone before on this great adventure, nor to think ahead to tomorrow and beyond. Just focus on today, and all its sights, sounds and smells, and anything else it had to offer. As I sat there, with pen poised over paper, I felt emotionally ever so slightly numb.   It was the wrong time to be doing this. I put the register back in its closet, and got back to my friends on the Trail. Back by the creek, I discovered that ¢Bumpkin¢ had whipped up a chocolate pudding mix, which we ate with cookies, to mark my last day. She has a much better sense of occasion than I do. The terrain on this last day has certainly been varied and from early afternoon we passed through a succession of landscapes - hedgerows and open meadow, cornfields, pine forest, other woodlands dominated by spruce, and several areas of swamp. One minute we would be walking quietly on a soft, springy carpet of pine needles, a short while later we would be under the glare of the sun on a ¢plank road¢ of two-by-fours through a swamp and fending off mosquitoes. At one point, we stopped by a tree absolutely laden with small red apples, with as many again windfalls lying in the long grass round about. ¢Bumpkin¢ and I waded in and ate two or three each on the spot. Quite sweet but with a distinct tartness as well. The ¢Chafe Master¢ wouldn¢t touch them, darkly suspicious of anything that hasn¢t been sanitised three times over and comes out of a vacuum-packed container. He¢s entitled after all his recent problems.   We didn¢t hurry at any stage today, took plenty of breaks, and finally came out on US.7 about 5.00pm to hitch a ride into Great Barrington. Our Good Samaritan was a young woman called Chrissie, a recent college graduate who is still figuring out what she wants to do with her life though something in the childcare field is high on the list of possibilities. Walking the AT had been one of the possibilities she had been considering this year but it hadn¢t worked out. This insight might seem a little deep from a ten minute conversation with a complete stranger, but AT hikers have learned to cut to the chase very quickly in such encounters.   More to the immediate point, Chrissie was on her way to play in a volleyball game in Great Barrington, but she was insistent that this should take second place to finding us a good place to stay. She took us right through Great Barrington (it¢s quite spread out) , brought us back again and then delivered us to the motel that seemed best situated for our needs. We ate out at ¢20 Railroad Street¢, a very good pub and restaurant, but we were all quite tired despite our modest mileage today. Also, ¢Chafe¢ became a little dehydrated during the last part of our walk and was rewarded with the inevitable headache later. We are zeroing tomorrow, and Great Barrington will be a springboard for all of us to go different ways on Friday. I catch the coach to NYC in the morning. ¢Chafe Master¢ will leave shortly after me, taking the coach in the opposite direction to Hanover, N.H. From there, he aims to hike the White Mountains of New Hampshire, then Maine, and reach Mt. Katadhin before the parks up there close for the winter. ¢Bumpkin¢ has similar plans. She expects ¢Mud Butt¢ to arrive tomorrow evening, bringing ¢Bumpkin¢s¢ car from NYC, so they can also jump forward to some point in NH and finish the Trail. How do I feel now that it's all over? I still don't know. A question for another day I think.