Date: 2009-08-14
From: October Mountain Leanto

To: Gulf Road, Dalton, MA
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: clear sky

It cooled down to 60 degrees overnight. The morning was pleasant and clear for a change. After our usual cold cereal breakfast, Rocky left the shelter at 7:31 am. Swamp Fox was having a disorganized morning and didn¢t leave for another eight minutes. It took him another 18 minutes to catch up with Rocky who was enjoying a leisurely walk through the woods on a nice and somewhat bug free morning.We reached Washington Mountain Road at 8:45 am. David had caught up to us at this point. The ¢Cookie Lady¢ is about 150 yards east of the AT crossing of the road. Rocky had stopped at the Cookie Lady¢s house on her 2005 hike, so she rested while Swamp Fox went to visit. The Cookie Lady is a trail institution and often leaves cookies for hikers, and has other refreshments for sale. Rocky couldn¢t eat cookies anyway, because of the gluten allergy. Swamp Fox was not about to pass up a chance to visit this trail institution, so he walked down to her house to fill our water bottles with fresh water. (The water at October Mountain Lean to is rather orange from either iron or the pine trees or both). The Cookie Lady was not around and there were no cookies. But Swamp Fox signed the register, and refreshed our water supply, and we were on our way. Rocky wasn¢t feeling too good as we proceeded north on the trail. There was little in the way of climbs until we reached Blotz Road. However, the trail was alternately muddy, rooty, and rocky, and the mosquitoes started to bite. We applied some DEET to our exposed skin areas, which helped somewhat, until we sweated it off. It was only a 200 foot climb from Blotz Road to the top of Warner Mountain. There was a great view to the west from the summit, along with a breeze and comfortable rocks to sit on. It was now a pleasant 75 degrees in the sun, so this was our perfect lunch stop at 11:30 am. At 2 pm, we arrived at the side trail to Kay Wood Leanto. We were out of water, so Swamp Fox walked the quarter mile or so to the water source to fill up.   Rocky rested at the side trail junction and chatted with a passing Nobo. Even though we were quite thirsty, we couldn¢t drink any water for another half hour. We purify our drinking water by adding two drops of bleach to a liter of water. However, it must sit for 30 minutes before you can safely drink it. Half an hour late, we stopped at the stream crossing just past Grange Hill Road to relax and take a refreshing drink of water. Then one last 300 foot climb over Day Mountain and we started the long descent into Dalton. Some wonderful Trail Angel had left sodas just before the railroad crossing on the south side of Dalton. A long freight trail was passing by so we were stopped for the moment at 4:10 pm, while we enjoyed a couple of sodas. They weren¢t real cold but they were quite refreshing. After the train passed we started our road walk through the town of Dalton. At 4:25 pm, we came to a nice shady spot across the street from the Methodist Church. Our rest was marred and cut short when Rocky was stung on the wrist by a yellow jacket. This was the last of a number of nasty bug bites that Rocky has had on this hike. We continued our road walk through town and arrived at our car at the Gulf Road parking area at 5:06 pm. This may be our last Appalachian Trail hiking of the year, as we leave for Florida in about five weeks. If in fact it is our final AT hike of this year, we will have one more entry to summarize our hiking experiences for 2009 and to talk about our prospective adventures in 2010.We hope we will see all our Friends of the Trail and our Trail of Friends at the ALDHA Gathering in Gettysburg PA in early October.