Date: 2003-07-10
From: Thunderbolt Emergency Shelter

To: Congdon Shelter
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: clear sky

From the Thunderbolt Emergency Shelter at Bascom Lodge on top of Greylock in Massachusetts to the Congdon Shelter in Vermont. A total of 20.4 miles. A little over 10 miles inside the Vermont border. I got up pretty late this morning about 6:30 and no one else was really moving around either because it¢s just too darn cold. It was 58 degrees inside the shelter and probably below 50 outside with a really strong wind. Just darn cold if you went outside. Last night after I got into my sleeping bag and turned on my light I tried to read a little bit. I had picked up A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson. I wanted to read it for like the 5th time and compare notes with the way I had seen things now that I had experienced it. I kept hearing people out in the parking lot looking down and I¢m sure that they were mentioning that there was a light in the shelter so I turned it off. I tried to go to sleep. I did go to sleep. I was pretty cold all night. It was very chilly and since I¢m carrying what basically amounts to a sleeping bag liner it¢s not rated for anything below 60 degrees. I was pretty chilly all night. Not extremely cold but just chilly even though I had my long johns on. I finally did get up about 6:30 and started stirring around. I walked outside and it was just magnificent. A magnificent view, which I took a picture of, looking down from Thunderbolt Shelter to this view of some crisp, clear, clean mountains poking out of this sea of fog. You could see for a long distance various mountain peaks and ranges. The peaks and the valleys were all completely filled in with fog. So, it had the illusion that you were looking across lakes of white water. I took a walk up to the lodge and determined that I was going to go ahead and eat breakfast there. They had a $7.00 breakfast but I found out when I got up there that breakfast didn¢t start until 8:00. So, I went back and by this time everyone was already up and had started packing. They were getting ready to haul it and walk. Draftrunner was the first one out the door followed a few minutes later by Mud and then right after Mud went Spiderman. I followed them all about 10 minutes later after I got done packing. The walk north out of Thunderbolt Shelter was in some place gradually uphill and in some places little short, steep uphills with long steps. Not horrible. Everything was still pretty damp from the rain the day before. There were mud puddles and water puddles and nothing to severe that my feet got wet. That went on for a bit until we got to the descent down to Massachusetts 2 which is Main Street in North Adams. That was just a terrible downhill. It was just extremely, extremely steep. No real rocks just a bunch of roots. A lot of pines needles and I managed to slip completely twice. I completely lost it. The first time I fell flat on my back, luckily landing on my backpack. The second time I caught my foot. It did a good twist on my knee and it ended up being swollen for that day and even this morning. I wasn¢t planning on going to town. I had said I¢d had my fill of town stuff for awhile. But I got down to the bottom and decided I was thirsty for a coke. I looked at the book and it said there was a place a 12 mile west to sit down and have a meal. I walked down that way and found out there was really no restaurant but there was a big grocery store. In fact, it was the grocery store that Tom Levardi works at. I just said screw it and I walked in there. I bought some hot cocoa and a couple of cranberry and walnut bagels and a pack of salami. I ran into Mud there through the store. Then I ran into Draftrunner. They both had stopped at the store. Mud commented that he wanted to go eat and I told him that I really didn¢t need to go eat. Then I changed my mind and I told him yeah I¢ll run up there and eat with you. Unfortunately, we had to walk back towards the trail and 7/10¢s of a mile east to get to the Friendly¢s on that side. So it was a little bit of a walk. Nothing horrible. We went into the Friendly¢s and both of us were actually glad that we had gotten there because it seems that your appetite is never ending out here. We both had steak fajita omelets which were 3 egg omelets with steak cut up inside of them with red bell peppers and tomato and tomato sauce. All kinds of things on top of it. There were heaping portions of home fries and white toast with butter. I drank at least 4 cups of coffee and a glass of water which definitely had an effect. When I walked away I had to stop like 4 or 5 times to pee. To top it all off we had these 22oz, huge milkshakes. I had a chocolate milkshake and he had coffee milkshake. That pretty well assured that we had sucked up a few thousand calories. We got up out of there and we both had our waitress fill up our little water hydration bags with ice and water which is a real nice treat to have while you're walking. Then we walked over to the Napa Auto Store and I managed to pick up a piece of wire to put around the brim of my hat which collapses over my face every time it starts to rain. He got a bottle of gas line antifreeze to use for fuel. We walked a little further and I stopped and got some cigarettes then we walked back up the 7/10¢s of a mile and started walking pretty well uphill. The rest of the day, a good part of it, was going uphill and sideways through the woods. I followed him for awhile until it got a little steeper and I slowed down. He took off. I kept on going and about an hour later I caught up to Draftrunner who had also hung out in town for a little while. She had sat inside the supermarket on one of the benches and ate. She said she ate and made calls for a couple of hours. I went ahead and passed her and kept on going. We passed the Massachusetts and Vermont line. The Congdon Shelter was 10.4 miles inside the Massachusetts line. But between the Massachusetts and the shelter there was a very distinct change in the woods. As if there was geographical delineation between Vermont and Massachusetts. In fact it was distinctly more rugged and wilder. The trail was rougher. Just really interesting how quickly it changed. You definitely had a feeling of isolation pretty quickly upon entering Vermont. Anyway, I got to the shelter about 5:30 and Mud was sitting there. I guess he had just gotten there a few minutes before. Then behind me a half hour later came Draftrunner. Spiderman didn¢t show up for awhile. He had stopped at the first shelter and taken himself a nap. He¢s a lover of naps. That constituted the four of us and nobody else showed up at the shelter. So, once again it was the four of us in one shelter. A real nice night. I sat up and cooked and read. I sat up the mosquito coils to keep the mosquitoes away and it seemed to work because I didn¢t have mosquito problems all night. The only problem is I had to get up continuously. I don¢t know what it was that I had eaten or what. I was starting to get worried that I had giardia because I had to get up like 4 times and go to the bathroom with diarrhea. The one piece of bad news that Draftrunner came up with¢¦she had heard when she was in town that it was supposed to start raining around midnight and continue to rain all day on Friday. That wasn¢t good news considering that the temperature was a lot cooler in the past couple of days. It never got above 70 degrees on the hike into the shelter. Regardless, we got into our sleeping bags and went to sleep.