Date: 2021-06-03
From: Great Barrington, Ma.

To: Shaker Campsite
Miles today: 17.7
Weather: overcast clouds

My timing for leaving the hotel this morning was pretty good, as the rain tapered off about 30 minutes before my shuttle arrived at 8:30. My driver was a retired planning commissioner for the city and now runs shuttle on a donations-based system for hikers coming into Great Barrington. Papa Joe - as he is called - also supplies a water cache about 8 miles north of town after the climb back up the ridge. Super nice guy. Forecast for the day was very humid and cloudy with afternoon rain and countless mosquitoes. My thought was to hike with one eye on the weather so as to set up camp before the heavens opened. Stealth camping in Massachusetts is strictly verboten...well, actually up until last Saturday ANY camping in Massachusetts was illegal due to Covid, but now they¢re back to only stealth being outlawed. Consequently, planning your day can be dicey as the designated sites aren¢t always convenient. I¢ve been fighting what I think is a cold bug since last week and as my family, friends and coworkers can attest: when I get a cold it goes right to my chest and I start hacking and coughing like a donkey with tuberculosis. (I¢m my mother¢s son, but this I get from my pop).  So I¢ve been congested and yesterday the cough started. A mile and a half out of town the climbing began and two hours later I was in a state. I wasn¢t sure anymore if I had a cold or maybe something more along the lines of a bronchial infection or pneumonia. It seemed like each step brought on a fit of coughing or wheezing hard to catch my breath. I was launching enough nasal-rockets to make Elon Musk take note. I was ready to call for a shuttle at the next road crossing and head back to town for more zero days. So then I did what any strong fella would do and called my wife. She assured me that after talking to me for half an hour last night that I sounded normal awful and not specifically awful and that maybe I was just pushing too hard on the hike.  As we were speaking I came to a view called ¢The Ledges¢ and stopped for a bit to chill out. Both the call and the timeout helped (though the mosquitoes started to swarm)  and once I started walking again, calm returned and by going waaaaay slow on the uphills I no longer risked rupturing my esophagus. I can only imagine what my wife was saying to herself after hanging up with me. A short while later Grumpy Cat came past me with Sundance and Gidget in tow. We all headed for a shelter a mile ahead for a break. Sundance has been hiking with GC for a few weeks now and is called a ¢Platinum Blazer¢, meaning he usually stays in motels when hiking as he is also being supported by his wife who is driving along the trail most days.  Gidget is from Rochester, Mi and is hiking with her dog. This is the first dog I¢ve seen that doesn¢t  actually hike.  It¢s about a 4 lb dog that Gidget tucks into a special compartment in her pack made for the little diggity. Too funny. I didn¢t even know she had a dog until she unpacked it! Gidget moved on first and I followed shortly after, though I never saw her again today.  I got to the South Wilcox shelter at 2:30 but stopping at 11 miles would make for a very short day or a very long day tomorrow during what promises to be a very rainy day. So I pushed on two more miles to North Wilcox shelter where I intended to stay but then saw there was no cell signal and no bear box listed as being available.  After consultations with GC and Sundance (who were hiking one mile more for their pick-up) i pondered things  Hmmmmmm.*Checks Guthook App*Four miles to the Shaker campsite, mostly kind trail, should still beat the rain.  Let¢s go  So I did the last four miles in about an hour and forty minutes and did indeed beat the rain  when I arrived I saw Free and Captain America already set up as well as Chef whom I met for the first time  Turns out Chef just had her first fall after 1600 miles and Captain fell twice today  You know what they say: slippery loves company. We all ate dinner with clouds of mosquitoes hovering around, though I wasn¢t very hungry and only managed to eat about 800 calories.I lounge now in my trusty hammock (one small tear recently repaired) and the rain is just starting to fall  Free and I are having a coughing contest, though my causes are not the same as his  There may be a short window around 6 am with no rain, so perhaps a mostly dry pack up will be possible. I¢m going to let tomorrow figure itself out tomorrow.  Campsites are 10 miles away and 19 miles away but at least the rain won¢t be hypothermic.  There is some talk of a guy who lives nearly on the trail up a ways who opens his property to hikers so they can camp and also talk of maybe hitching into Town and splitting hotel rooms.  This will all be fine.