Date: 2015-06-16
From: Cheshire

To: Williamstown
Miles today: 14.7

Didn't sleep for a long time last night. I should have taken a sleeping pill, since I didn't manage to sleep until about 1am. I woke up at 6 and then quickly fell back to sleep until 7.30. I finally left the church after 8 and followed the trail through the town. I took a brief detour to get breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. The woman behind me in the queue paid for my small tea and maple donut, after asking where I was hiking from. Then, back in the trail and up into the mud. As expected, the trail was very wet and muddy. The plank board walks were just as slippery as the wet rocks. Once again I had to jump and balance around the mud puddles and bursting streams. Once again I slipped a million times. By lunch time, my legs were covered in mud and my shoes and socks were absolutely filthy. It was annoying since my socks had been clean on this morning. The trail for the first few miles up was also weirdly overgrown. I had to walk through a lot of soaking wet leaves. It seems like someone just needs too through there and snip at the branches, so it's a little odd that no one seems to have done any trail maintenance there for a while. There were also a few freshly downed trees that I had to gingerly climb over.At lunchtime, I reached the top of Mt Greylock. It's the highest point in Massachusetts (which I now call Mudssachusetts in my head). I saw a couple of families and day hikers heading up, which surprised me because it was absolutely miserable and there were no views at all. I couldn't even properly see the giant war memorial that looked pretty cool. I was also surprised by the lodge that is at the summit. Unfortunately, the cafe was closed but I was still able to sit inside and use the wifi. I used the wifi and checked the weather, whilst watching the clouds get closer to the mountains outside of the windows. I'm sure that on a clear day, there would be spectacular views. Nonetheless, there were some day hikers and visitors milling about. Someone in a log book complained that there were so many tourists that they were unable to get any good pictures. For me, it was just the drizzling weather and dense, low clouds. I stayed in the lodge for a while and then left quickly and raced down to try and beat the worst of the weather to the bottom. The rain started to get heavier and the mud, somehow, got muddier. I slid along plenty of times, but managed not to fall. It was like being back on the ice again, and it was certainly not fun. I got to the road that was the edge of North Adams just about 3pm. I managed to get a ride quickly to the Willows Motel. It's quite a decent motel, and cheaper than the last one in Dalton. It's much nicer, higher quality. AWOLs guide says it has an "elaborate continental breakfast" which I'm interested to see what on earth that would look like. The dining area is in the office, and it didn't look particularly elaborate to me. Still, I was able to get out of the rain and the mud. Instead of hiking up, 2,000 ft into the thunderstorm, through all the mud and sliding about, I took a long bubble bath and ate a thousand calories of Twizzlers. A couple days ago, Deerdog shared a photo of something that Hermit had written in a trail register. He pretty much wrote how everyone feels at the moment - the desire to push on and finally finish, and the desire to slow down and drag out the hiking so that it doesn't have to end yet. All of the Georgia thru hikers feel this way, but the flip floppers don't. Because of course, they're still at the beginning really. At the Cookie Lady's house, a flip flopper asked me if I was "over" hiking. I told him that I had been over it since before Harpers Ferry. He seemed to take this as meaning I would quit the very next day, and tried to convince me that it would get better. The truth is, this is the better times. My body doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as it did. It has adjusted, strengthened, calloused. But my mind hasn't caught up. It's still strong enough for me to continue hiking, but each day I find myself thinking about the same things I thought about in my first days. Actually, my body and feet hurt so much then that it distracted me from my thoughts. But now it's just me all day and all night, fully cognisant that I can quit at any time. Even 1,500 miles in, I'm still having the same internal arguments with myself. And always with the same conclusion that I'm not finished yet, so I have to keep going. But it's not getting easier for me to think that way, whereas it is physically easier for me to hike 20 miles in a day. But mentally, it's still as hard as it ever was.