Date: 2018-07-20
From: Riga Shelter

To: Under a pine tree at Mile 1520.4
Miles today: 16.3
Weather: scattered clouds

Maybe we can sleep in, Cole had said last night. No such luck. The noisy teens were up surprisingly early. Before we even crawled out of our beds, the whole procession was packed up and tromping past our tent. Then it was perfectly silent.¢Are they gone?¢¢This early? They can¢t be.¢I got up to retrieve the food bags from the bear box. Sure enough, they were gone.We had more steep climbs today and were rewarded with majestic views. There were difficult and slow rocky descents as well.After filtering our water at a stream I continued on while Cole packed up. I expected him to be on my heels shortly. He was not. I hiked along a ridge line admiring the beauty and hoping he would catch up soon so we could share the moment. Still no Cole. He sometimes lags behind a bit if we are at odds, but we weren¢t. Finally I stopped and sat to wait. Was he digging a cat hole? Did he stop to talk to someone?Finally I took my pack off and leaving it behind I retraced my steps along the ridge line. Eventually I found him limping towards me with blood streaming down his right knee. He had fallen on his climb up and had sat down on the rocks to compose himself.I took him to where I had left my bag and I cleaned the blood off his leg and hands. It didn¢t look nearly as bad once it was clean. It was cut and scraped and maybe a bit swollen, but he said that he was feeling ok. I was upset. I spend so much time worrying and stressing, always fearful of exactly this. We had already had a discussion about how the terrain was going to be getting more and more difficult as we move further north and that I would want him to stay with me. I think now is a good time to start staying together, I told him. I expected a complaint, or at least a sour face. Instead he said ¢Maybe if I am walking slower with you then I will fall less.¢¢You are probably right bud.¢¢Will I have to change my trail name?¢¢Why would you have to do that?¢¢Because I won¢t be climbing the mountains fast like a Mountain Goat anymore.¢¢You¢ll always be a Mountain Goat hon.¢¢Ok.¢We found a really nice place to stop and eat our lunch. It was an unmarked shelter with an excellent view. User comments on Guthooks called it a secret shelter while another commenter said that it was not intended for overnighting in. It was perfect for shading us while we ate. Cole took off his shoes and sox to air out his feet. The stench quickly filled the partially enclosed space. I encouraged him to put on a clean pair. He was going to shove the putrid ones into his bag. Ugh! ¢No, no,¢ I said. ¢Why don¢t you hang them on the outside of my bag.¢I have an extra strap that goes around the outside of my bag that I often hang clothes from to dry or air out.When we got back on the trail we joked and laughed about the horrid smell the socks hanging from my bag were leaving in my wake as I hiked. If Cole walked too close to my heals the smell of the sox made him gag. If I turned around too quickly, my nose would be were the sox had just been and my face would contort at the smell. Twice today Cole¢s nose started to bleed. It does that sometimes when the air is dry. It was funnier though to blame it on the sox.The shelters are really weirdly spaced out on this section of the trail. In order to stay at a shelter we either had to do a nine mile day or a twenty-four Mile day. Neither of those worked. Some of the hikers we talked to were going into town where they offered free tenting at the community Center. The town was three miles off the trail. Although stealth camping is not allowed in MA (we had crossed the border earlier in the day) we decided that it was our best option. As the sun was setting, in a heavily mosquito infested area we found a flat piece of ground tucked under a pine tree. We ate bread and cheese for a quick dinner and crawled into our beds as the mosquitoes buzzed outside.