Date: 2017-08-03
From: MA 2, Williamstown, MA

To: VT 9, City Stream
Miles today: 18.4
Weather: overcast clouds

We started the day with breakfast served at River Bend Farm.  Dave, the proprietor, got up in time to serve us breakfast at 5:00 AM.  The spread was just the kind of food I like: granola, yogurt, fresh blueberries and raspberries, cold hard-boiled eggs, toast, strawberry-rhubarb jam, banana jam, orange juice, and lots of coffee.  We were able to head back to the trail shortly after 5:30 and were hiking by 6:00.The trail went through North Adams, where there were several immediate instances of trail magic.  A cooler of water, sports drinks, and soft drinks was beside the trail.  A little further the trail ran through someone's yard beside a large pretty perennial garden.  The owner had placed a hose near a bed of daisies with a sign telling hikers to help themselves to water.  I left town with a favorable impression of the residents.  Yesterday the post office employees let me in to pick up a package even though the office was already closed for the day.  And, because they had already closed the books for the day, they didn't charge me the postage that was due.  About four miles into the hike we reached the Vermont border.  Almost as soon as we entered Vermont the terrain changed.  I immediately heard two interesting bird songs that I didn't recognize.  (I recorded them to look up later.).   We started seeing a lot more muddy places on the trail.  And the woods changed to a light, sun-dappled place with relatively short trees - beech, I think - and dense shrubbery of a single species I didn't recognize.  It looked completely different from the woods we'd been in before.  There were wetlands, with bog bridges, and several ponds.  One, Roaring Branch Pond, had a huge curved beaver dam.  We stopped there to eat late lunch.  As we were leaving we heard a bullfrog who sounded really close.  We stopped to look for it and found it half out of the water on a rock.  We got a good look at it. It was green on top but had a yellow underbelly and chin.  This is the first bullfrog I've actually seen.  At one road crossing there was a poster explaining the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department's effort to reintroduce martens to this area.  The creature was described as brown, about 2.5 pounds, and about the size of a house cat.  The picture showed a small creature with alert eyes, rounded ears on top of its head, and a long slender brown body.  Arlene said it looked like a cat-monkey.  We did not see any martens or any cat-monkeys.At one point I checked my mail and found I had a message from my guest book.  A reader named Alan wrote that he has been following this journal and the one by Terri, another expedition member.  He has been inspired to start dreaming about a hike of his own and has mailed some off-trail magic to the group at Hancock, New Hampshire.  I continue to be amazed at the generosity and kindness of complete strangers.  When we were about 2.5 miles from the end of the hike we started hearing thunder.  It wasn't frequent, but it sounded close.  We geared up to thunderstorm speed and kept hiking.  The last half mile was a very steep downhill, with some stone steps - very scary.  Our goal was to get there and get down before the rain started.  We were lucky.  We managed to finish the hike, pitch our tents, and get our packs ready for tomorrow's hike before the rain started.  It has now stopped and is predicted not to resume until tomorrow morning after 7:00.