Date: 2003-07-04
From: Pine Swamp Brook Lean -To

To: Brassie Brook Lean-To
Miles today: 21.0

Total mileage 21 miles. From the Pine Swamp Brook Lean-To - to the Brassie Brook Lean-To. I got up about 5:30 and cooked some grits. I packed up slowly. It took me awhile. I finally got back on the trail and moving about 6:40. My intention this morning is to make it to US 7 where there is a restaurant. I hope they¢re open. It¢s the 4th of July so they may not be but I¢d love to have a sit down breakfast. The bad thing about being the first person walking in the morning is that you have to break the trail. In the case of the AT it means that you end up walking through all the spider webs. You hit hundreds of them in the morning if you¢re the first guy through. So, I wear my big, floppy hat and keep my head down so the hat gets most of the stuff that hits your face. Stuff at your feet really doesn¢t matter. Then, when I see big bunches of them, which isn¢t always possible because the light hasn¢t come up yet, I take the pole and swing in out in front of me and try and break them up. I break them up before I get to them. The trail has definitely gotten a lot rougher. It¢s a struggle to do 2 miles an hour now. I had gotten used to cruising through VA and PA at 3 or 3 12 miles an hour. It¢s just not possible anymore. It¢s a lot of work. A lot of rough climbs and a lot of roots to climb and go over. I guess party time is over. What I talked about earlier the other day, about changing attitudes towards hikers, becomes pretty evident. In NY we were a curiosity. In Kent, CT we were a nuisance. Smelly people among the rich. In the south you have a tremendous amount of hiker support which is great. It does take a lot of effort to do the trail and all those little things that people do along the way really makes a difference in your attitude as you¢re walking. The reason I'm even mentioning this is because I just dropped out of the trail onto US 7 and 100 yards before the road there was a big sign nailed to a tree that said ¢Hikers Do Not Visit The Garage. Hikers Not Welcome¢ which meant a garage right next to the road didn¢t want anything to do with hikers. We¢ll just see how this continues. I think by the time you get up here it gets harder to because you¢re basically on your own. The community support is no longer there. As I¢m walking down the trail here, north of US 7, I¢m going through a little corridor to get to the Mohawk Trail and out to the restaurant. There are ripe mulberries all over the trail. They¢re covering the place. I can¢t even see where they fell off of because I don¢t see any trees or bushes. But the whole trail is just covered with mulberries. I think they¢re mulberries anyway. I have a hard time telling the difference. I am not a pro at this. I have a hard time telling the difference between mulberries and blackberries. Regardless, they¢re delicious.Today was a day of towns. I did get to the Mountaintop Caf©. I sat there and ate a tremendous amount of food. I had 2 eggs with a chunk of ham, home fries, toast and three cups of coffee. Then I told the lady that I wanted some pancakes too. She brought out the biggest pancakes I¢ve ever seen. Three pancakes. Bigger than the dinner plate. They were flopping off the side. I ate almost all of them. I left just a sliver. This was all before 10:00. I jumped back on the trail and about 3 miles later I came up to Falls Village which the real name of the town is actually Canaan. But, everyone knows it¢s Falls Village and that¢s a whole other story. It has to do with someone¢s idea of building a hydroelectric plant which still stands there. When they built the dams for some reason the dingalings didn¢t put mortar in between the rocks that they built it with so it leaks like a sift. It¢s the 4th of July and I was trying to find (and willing to sacrifice miles for it) a party somewhere¢¦.to find something happening and nothing was happening in Falls Village. I did a quick walk to town and nothing was open except for one bar which I stopped and had a single Corona in. Then I got back on the trail which was about a half a mile out of town. I continued walking and figured I¢d try Salisbury next which Salisbury was a good walk further along. About 8 miles I believe. I am walking through a very ritzy, very expensive, upscale area. I mentioned this earlier that the sections of the trail that run through New York and in especially Connecticut are upscale, high end play areas from what I was told when I stopped at the Mountainside Caf© this morning. I got a lot of sidelong looks from all the preppies that were in there. They were all outfitted for various outdoor recreations. There¢s a whole group dressed up in bike clothes. All the skin tight stuff. Another group looked like they were going to go kayaking. I was very much out of place there. I guess they wouldn¢t have to look down their nose if they had somehow managed to supply a place for hikers to take a bath so they didn¢t smell so much. Anyway, I dropped into Salisbury and by this time it was 2:30 in the afternoon. That town was dead as a doornail too as far as anything going on for the 4th of July. At least some people were having outdoor barbecues in the back yard and stuff like that. Nothing was going on and nothing was open. The ice cream parlor was open and I went in there and had a quick ice cream which cost a fortune. It was like $4.00. I went across the street to the bank and used the ATM and walked around a little bit. Nothing was open and nobody was out doing anything. I got back on the trail about 3:15 ¢¦when I say back on the trail¢¦every time I drop down to one of these towns it¢s usually anywhere from a 1 12 mile to 2 mile walk. Luckily this morning the biggest one was only 8/10¢s of a mile and I was figuring it was worth it to at least check the towns out and see what was going on.   Nothing was going on so I got back on the trail at 2:30 and hauled it. I walked until about 5:30. I passed a couple of different shelters figuring they were going to be totally packed because the parking lots at the trailheads were totally packed. I figured that all the weekend warriors were probably taking up the shelters again. I walked to the third or fourth shelter which was this one. The Brassy Brook Shelter. People are tented. I can¢t see them. They are tented out among the laurels which are absolutely in full bloom. White flowers all of them and they are everywhere. They¢ve been everywhere through this whole section. I hear them talking out in the distance but I am the only one in the shelter. It¢s 8:00 so there¢s a possibility that someone may still walk in. It¢s just unprecedented. During trail days I think I slept in a shelter once by myself but other than that I think this is the only other time that I¢ve had the entire shelter to myself. There are fireworks supposed to be going off somewhere around here at dark. I don¢t know exactly which direction. I probably won¢t see them either because I¢m surrounded by trees but I probably will hear them unless the rain knocked them out. It just stopped raining. It was a quick evening shower. Nothing significant. It rained hard for about 15 minutes but before that the day was sunny and it looks like it¢s all going away already. So, I¢m going to sit here before it gets dark and pull out my map and data book and try to determine where I¢m going to end up tomorrow. I have less than 40 miles to go to get to my next mail drop in Tyringham, MA. Today¢s only Friday¢¦so Saturday, Sunday and Monday¢¦.I think what I¢ll try to do is walk maybe a decent day tomorrow and then a real easy day Sunday or just get it over with and walk into Tyringham and stay the night there. Although, I don¢t think that¢s going to be economical because the price that you pay for being in a ritzy area is that the accommodations are out of control. Hotel rooms are over 100 bucks a night. There are no hostels to accommodate hikers. It¢s quite a switch. I think other than Fontana Village all the other towns that I recall south of here on the trail were really working class towns like Duncannon and Palmerton and Hot Springs. Hot Springs was a resort town but a resort town for normal people. Not movie stars. I think I like those towns better. The people treated you like you were one of them and it was no big deal. Anyway, that¢s it for the night.