Date: 2009-07-16
From: Brassie Brook Lean-to

To: Tom Leonard Lean-to
Miles today: 23.2

Blessed got up a little after 5 am. I probably got up 20-30 minutes later, which is still incredibly early for me. By the time I was ready to cook my breakfast, I figured Blessed would be taking off and that I¢d never see him again, but he waited for me to cook, eat, and pack up! (Mr. Pink, who?). It was to be an exciting day. We would climb three mountains in the morning, hike along Sages Ravine, enter our home state of Massachusetts, and cross over the 1500 mile point in our journey! We first came to Bear Mountain, which had a rockpile monument on top, from which you could get a much better view. Beams of sunlight streamed through the dark clouds. A storm was on its way. We could tell this earlier because we heard no birds singing in the morning. They must have been seeking shelter. Blessed stopped at a river to collect water. He had bypassed an earlier source, saying the water looked ¢too black.¢ He does not purify his water. The CT/MA border was supposed to be coming up just before the Sages Ravine Brook campsite, and I thought there was a sign for this border, but we saw nothing. We saw the campsite across the river and signs for the campsite, but no border signs¢¦ Disappointing! Because this border was so important to us, we decided to make our own marker out of rocks. It was the first time either of us had made a marker like this on the trail, and we had fun putting it together and taking pictures with it. When we were ready to move on, two campers were making their way out of the campsite. One slipped and fell going down some rock steps. Since I had never seen them before, I assumed they were southbounders, so when they started following us, I told them they were going the wrong way! Whoops! They were actually northbounders who had started in PA- Brave Little Toaster and his dog Pork, and Frank N. Stein (love it!). Pork kept getting ahead of Blessed and was continually being called back by BLT. Blessed and I let them go ahead so we could enjoy the ravine more. We spent more time taking pictures there. I took my first black and white images of the trip, as Blessed tried slowing down the movement of the running water with his camera.    We continued along, and I saw a brown sign ahead¢¦ It said ¢Welcome to Massachusetts!¢ Whoops! My guidebook was wrong again! There was a register underneath the sign, and in it, I found a message in it that read, ¢Wendy, where are you? I thought you were ahead of me. See you soon, Sunbeam and Halfmoon.¢ I was perplexed at this note because I knew Sunbeam and Halfmoon were behind me and weren¢t looking for me. I knew it was written by Mr. Pink. I signed the register, apologizing to those behind us for the early MA sign, but on the bright side, they got to celebrate twice! Blessed signed his name with GA-ME underneath for the first time on the trip. I decided it was time for me to start doing the same!       Next we climbed Race Mountain. It started to rain, which clouded our views along the expansive ridgeline. Blessed, however, kept saying, ¢Oh, this is perfect!¢ He had an amazingly positive attitude, which was nice to be around. I didn¢t mind the rain, either, as it made the air feel a little cooler (the humidity was high), and the intensity remained light. However, it did make the rocks slippery. We picked a few blueberries a little farther ahead, as Blessed tried identifying some unusual leaves. We had one more mountain ahead of us for the first part of the day- Mt. Everett (otherwise known as Mt. Everest to some of the thru-hikers). We saw from our guidebooks that it was only a 700 ft climb and decided that it couldn¢t be that bad. I tried to keep up with Blessed for as long as possible, but his leg muscles were just too big, and his stride too long for me to do so. I¢d just have to make it up in my own time. When I reached the top, and found him sitting down and enjoying the view, I told him he was lucky that he hikes so fast so that he can enjoy nice breaks. We both admitted that climb was not easy at all. After looking over the clouds on a viewpoint on the other side of the mountain, we started on a long downhill toward the next shelter. It seemed (to me) to take forever. I was moving slow to avoid slipping, but as I checked the time on my watch, my feet slipped out from underneath me and I fell hard. Tears started to well up in my eyes. Blessed was ahead of me and didn¢t see it, but I think he heard it. ¢Are you all right?¢ he called back. I didn¢t feel like talking because I was in such pain. My knee was bloody, my wounds were covered in dirt, and my toes were hurting. I wanted to cry, but didn¢t want to appear weak to Blessed, so I tried to keep it in. The shelter was only a few hundred yards away. BLT and Frank N. Stein were there playing a game of cards. I went to the bathroom and then took off my shoes and socks. I wanted to be taken care of, but guys don¢t seem the best for that, so I toughened up and dug into my foodbag for something to eat.    Soon, we were on our way again. Blessed needed to go into Great Barrington to resupply, but I did not. I just had to get to the Tom Leonard Lean-to to meet my friends at MA 23 the next morning. I told Blessed that he should go ahead- that I didn¢t want to slow him down. However, he insisted I was not doing so. He would hike ahead and I would hike at my pace and then see him taking a break ahead. He told me once that he wanted to make sure I hadn¢t fallen again. I said that I did, but didn¢t hurt myself that time because my pack took the brunt of it. I started to get more and more tired as the afternoon went on. It was taking a lot of energy to try to keep up to Blessed. Often, I would get closer to him as he stopped to photograph a flower or something, but then he would take off again, leaving me a bit demoralized. At one point, he said he felt like he was dancing with the trail and started skipping, which I could not believe, given how tired I was! We made our way through fields and onto the Shays Rebellion Monument, and finally reached the road which would take Blessed into Great Barrington. It was about 4 pm and I had 6.4 miles to get to the shelter. I knew I could get there before dark if I pressed on. However, Blessed wanted me to come into town with him to resupply. He thought I could help him get a ride. I looked around for a place within walking distance to get something to eat. However, there was nothing around. We stuck out our thumbs and pretty soon, a car pulled over. As Blessed opened the door to get in, I asked him what I was doing. ¢You¢re coming with me.¢ So, in I went, too. The kid who gave us the ride asked us where we wanted to go. He explained the grocery store options to us, as well as the restaurant options. The nicer places were farther away. I agreed that we should go there, adding, ¢We¢ve got nothing but time!¢ (Every now and then, I like to pretend that I¢m laid-back!).    We found a nice place to eat and the owner let us stash our packs in the back, where Blessed also found an outlet to charge his phone and camera battery. We were going to sit by the window, but then Blessed thought better of it and decided to sit further away from the other patrons. By this time, it had been two weeks since I last washed my clothes and a week since my last shower! However, if you asked me, I would have said that I didn¢t smell at all! After a few days go by, we become immune to our smell and those of the hikers around us. I washed some of the dirt off my cuts and sat down for a nice meal. My body enjoyed the break.      After we ate, we hitched a ride to the grocery store from a very nice gentlemen who said he would return after his errand to see if we were still waiting for a ride! I was surprised how nice the people in western MA were, and how easy it was to get a ride here! Blessed and I put our packs in grocery carts and wheeled them around the store, while he looked for his food. It was quite fun! I had never needed to resupply like this, so it was a new experience for me. As he packaged up his items and had me put new batteries into his headlamp, I started hearing people talk about the intense storm with hail that was on its way. Say, what? I called Calvin in the lab to make sure the plans were okay for tomorrow, and asked him to check the radar. He said there was a storm alert in effect until 7pm, and said that since it was just about 7, we should be okay. We got a ride to the trailhead from a nice lady, who wondered what we were going to do. She wanted to drive us further ahead to another trailhead, but neither Blessed nor I wanted to cheat.   We made our way back to the fields, where swarms of mosquitoes chased us, and then as we looked to our left, we saw black funnels that looked like a tornado was about to touch down! Ahead of us, we could see that we had a mountain to climb! We were heading into a tornado! As soon as we set foot into the forest, the air turned black. It started to rain, and Blessed suggested that we tie up my tarp and hunker down for awhile. This was the first time I had done this. I picked the tree closest to me to tie the one side of the tarp to. Blessed didn¢t know how to put up the tarp, so I had to do it all myself. As soon as it was up, and we had gotten inside, I looked up at the path, and saw a big problem coming! The trail was about to turn into a running river and it was headed right for us! Stupid me! I got too lazy in where to tie the tarp. We had to stoop down at the sides of the tarp as the water came streaming through the middle. I looked in my pack and couldn¢t find my raincoat! I had lost it in the commotion of getting the last ride and getting back out onto the trail! Oh, well¢¦ it wan¢t like it was waterproof anyway!   When the rain started to let up a little, we put the tarp away and started the climb. Daylight was disappearing. It soon became apparent that we were no longer even on the trail! I had been following Blessed and not checking for white blazes. We were stepping over downed trees and had not even realized that we were on a blue- blazed path! What an eventful evening this was turning out to be! We headed back until we found a white-blaze and then found the correct turn-off. Next, we were faced with a sheer, slippery rockface that I had no idea how to get up! I had no faith in the soles of my shoes and knew I would just slip down if I tried to step on it. I asked Blessed what I should do, as I looked around for an alternative way, hoping for something to hold onto. Blessed calmly talked me through it and told me not to place too much weight on my poles. ¢Okay. Okay, ¢ I responded, still not knowing how I was to get up this sheer incline. After I made it, Blessed told me to call him in the future if I was ever feeling under-confident, and he would remind me of what I had done. As we continued along, I noticed I couldn¢t see very well. The fog and drizzle was interfering with the little light that our headlamps were producing. This walk was becoming harder and harder! All of a sudden, I stepped down and felt immense pain emanating from my ankle. I knew I had sprained it. I told Blessed I had to stop for a minute while I breathed out the pain. Then I kept going, as there was no other choice. Where was the shelter? This walk was taking forever! We should have reached it by now, we both thought. On and on, we continued. Finally, I saw a blue blazed path. But there was no sign for a shelter! Maybe it was just a path for water. Blessed said he would go ahead and check. He came back and said it was the shelter! I followed him and saw that it was a nice, big one, as we came around the back of it. ¢Is there anyone in it?¢, I asked. There were four people- one in each of the bunks. It was 10:45, and we were wet and exhausted. Blessed bought us each a whoopie pie, which we ate at the picnic table after we changed and put our sleeping bags on the shelter floor. Someone called out to me, ¢Wendy?¢. I looked, wondering who in the shelter knew me. It was Mr. Pink! I wanted to smack him! I thought he was staying in Great Barrington with Squeegie¢s relative. Apparently, there were too many people staying with her and Mr. Pink was not invited. I started to feel bad for him. He asked me if I got caught in the rain. (What kind of question is that? Of course I did!). A grumpy man below demanded that I turn off my headlamp.    Blessed and I crawled into our sleeping bags, but we would not get any rest that night. The mosquitoes were out in full force! What a day¢¦. What a night!