Date: 2017-07-28
From: Story Spring lean to

To: Congden Camp lean to
Miles today: 23.3

We were chatting with a nobo at Glastenbury fire tower about what each of us could expect in our respective directions. "For about 500 miles after Mt Greylock, there's going to be no mountains," he said. His intonation made it clear that this was a warning.I'm not entirely sure what Pan and Tink, fellow sobos, thought about this but I'm guessing it was along the same lines as my own reaction: "No mountains? That sounds pretty good to me."A few minutes earlier, Pan, Tink and I had been catching up after having not seen them since Hanover, at which point Tink's enthusiasm for the trail was at such a low ebb that I wondered if I'd see them again.Almost all of us, it turned out, had slowed down or otherwise taken time off the trail on the last few weeks to recover -- bodily and/or mentally -- from New Hampshire and Maine. What that meant was that we kept running into people we thought would be at least a week ahead."It's like the bubble we started with has reformed," Pan noted.One benefit was that, notwithstanding setbacks like the muscle I'd pulled in my back, we're in shape to start increasing our mileage.Today, for example, was the furthest I'd covered since the flat rail-trail walking in the first week of the IAT. And this definitely wasn't rail trail terrain, although it was a far cry from the one-mile-per-hour stuff we'd been doing in the first month of the AT.I'd expected the mud to continue as it had been in the miles before the shelter but, as presaged in yesterday's journal entry, all the tales of Vermud proved to be grossly exaggerated. I kept thinking the easy dry trail was a temporary aberration but it went on and on and on.The only bits of trail beta from nobos that had consistently proved to be actually useful and accurate revolved around food. One such bit of information was that in North Adams, through which the trail went, the Papa John's pizza franchise offered half price to hikers, so the last couple of days had been with a view to arrive at lunchtime tomorrow. I was hoping that a pizza- and soda-fuelled lunch would power me up Mt Greylock, a 3,000ft ascent and reportedly the last mountain before 500 miles of nothing more than rolling hills.What that meant today was heading to Congden Camp lean to, making a day of 23 miles. The final mile to the shelter was as muddy as the nobos' tales, but instead of being a sign of impending mudocalypse, it turned out to be yet another aberration before the return of fast easy trail. In any event, a combination of increasing fitness and easier trail meant this was a feasible destination, even if Pan, Tink and the Three Goldilocks and the Bear halted six miles before.Tomorrow I'll be in a new (and easier) state, about to climb the last mountain for a month and also stuffed with discount pizza. Do I really need to say it? Life is good.AT fact of the day: "I was in the psych ward because I was thinking things and the people on TV were replying to what I was thinking. They say I have paranoid schizophrenia and when they released me from the psych ward, they told me I had to take my meds but they don't work so I stopped taking them." Actual conversation with another occupant of the lean to tonight...