Date: 2017-06-28
From: Salisbury

To: Great Barrington
Miles today: 21.0
Weather: broken clouds

I wake to birds outside the window and am afraid I've overslept. I have 20+ hard miles to go before evening. But it's only 5:30. No matter, I'm up. I wash my sneaker insoles, dump the leaden trail magic sleeping bag, and repack. Salisbury is a ghost town til a bakery opens at 7. I grab a croissant and frittata. Other boarders are stirring when I return. I take my leave and walk out of town. Hardly a car passes. I exit through the cemetery, with gravestones and monuments from the 19th century and maybe earlier. A lot more people lived here than appears at present.The morning is cool and breezy. I realize one cause of my occasional lethargy the past week was humidity. Today I get a break, and just in time. There are four big climbs all in a row: Lion's Head, Bear Mtn, Mt Race, and Mt Everett. Bear and Everett are fun steep climbs over bedrock. There are old growth pine forests that give the  air a fresh smell. I cross into Massachusetts between Bear and Race at a roaring stream in Sages Ravine. At the top of Mt Race, local hiker Joan with her dog gives me the lay of the land. She's been hiking this region for 60 years. She points out Mt Greylock on the horizon, 80 trail miles north and the tallest peak in Massachusetts. She explains that Bear Mtn is NOT the highest point in CT as everyone believes. That honor goes to a side of Mt Frissell whose peak is in Massachusetts. No wonder Connecticut ignores it.Multitool is resting on Mt Race's rocky peak. I haven't seen him since Swatara Gap in PA. He's hiked all the trail from here to Katahdin before but must do it now to complete his thruhike. I meet Predator at the bottom (named for his hometown Nashville Predators). A SOBO (southbounder) comes through. We excitedly think he's the first SOBO thruhiker from Katahdin this year. But he's just out doing a section. Still, we should start meeting SOBOs very soon.At the bottom of Mt Everett a local hiking group called The Silver Scramblers have set up a big food spread. Homemade lemonade, cookies, and brownies, watermelon, hot dogs, chocolate milk, hardboiled eggs, apples, and more are all gratefully consumed by the three of us. They've fed 25 thru-hikers in just a few hours. I learn we've just left the Taconic range and will now enter the Berkshires. A brief rain shower ends the party and we move on. Predator and I pass up a chance for a dip in Guilder Pond. We've cooled down and the rain has left a temporary chill. The 8+ mile hike to route 7 is generally easy and fast but seems to take forever. The last miles always do. The trail descends to open fields and now I feel the afternoon heat and the bugs find me. Where is that pond now?At route 7, I face a four mile hot road walk to my motel in Great Barrington. I try to hitch. A dozen cars and trucks pass without a glance. I'm no good at this. I try smiling. No luck. Finally a black SUV pulls over. I stumble and fall backwards over the curb getting out of the way. It's Jamie, a local who works in polymers at the Bayer plant and always picks up hikers. He tells me how Great Barrington and the Berkshires are New York and Boston's summer retreat. The Boston Pops play here for the summer along with many other cultural attractions. He drops me at the motel on the north side of town, basically a strip of restaurants and a supermarket. Perfect for what I need. At the motel my summer sleeping bag has arrived. It feels warm and cozy, weighs a tenth of the Coleman, and packs to the size of a Nalgene bottle. The Coleman took up more space than everything else I carry combined. After a shower I check out a Greek restaurant a few minutes walk away. It's the first non-sandwich meal I've had on the trail. I almost feel civilized.