Date: 2008-06-06
From: Brassie Brook Lean-to CT

To: Glen Brook Lean-to MA 
Miles today: 8.9

Day 110 ¢ Friday June 6 ¢ Glen Brook Lean-to MA ¢ Miles Today: 8.9 Total Miles: 1500.6The rain arrived last night at 10:00. It rained throughout the night with numerous thunderstorms; none of them were directly overhead so they weren't terribly loud or scary. The weather system continued until about 10:00 this morning - 12 hours of solid rain with scattered thunderstorms! The problem was that we needed to climb up and over Bear Mountain first thing this morning and did not want to in a thunderstorm. We waited and waited in the tent for the storms to end. At 9:15 we gave John a call to see how much longer the storms were going to last. He got on the internet and told us we only had about another hour until the band of storms passed and then we'd have scattered showers potentially through the remainder of the day. At 10:00 we started to get ready and were on the trail about 10:30. We had a couple of mountains to go over this morning. Bear Mountain was the first one and we climbed that one with no problem. Soon after Bear Mountain, we passed the 2 lady section-hikers who we've been seeing on and off the past week. They headed out of camp in the rain and storms this morning. Unfortunately one of them took a spill and fell forward, banging her head on the rocks. She appeared to be doing quite fine and didn't have an open wound but was mentally shaken. I think both ladies were quite nervous for the remainder of the day on the wet, slippery rocks. Our next mountain was Race Mountain. We boulder walked right along the edge of the ridge, with a good drop-off on one side. Unfortunately, the view off the drop-off was white ¢ i.e., fog. We did not have a single view all day long. Every state though seems to have a need to route us to the top of every mountain rather than going down around it and so many times we have no view due to fog or rain. Perhaps there is some sort of competition between the trail clubs that we do not know about! Luckily, once we started hiking, we had no more rain, but wow, what a day! It should have been an extremely short hiking day as we had only 8.9 miles but boy was it a good thing that we did not have a long day planned, as it took us 5.5 hours to cover that small distance. We had a lot of WET rock to climb up today. Rivers were coming down the trail, complete with waterfalls! Even if it had been a dry day, it would have been very slow going so my goodness, what a smart decision to take that long day and break it into two! Just as we were feeling like heels doing only an 8.9-day, we checked the register and saw that Chris did the same. So obviously this section is slow going for many people and they're pulling up short rather than trying to push on to the next shelter. Given the conditions, we were pleased when Grasshopper only fell once and Brakeman didn't fall at all. There are 2 shelters at this mile marker about a tenth of a mile apart. The first one is called the Hemlocks Lean-To and when we pulled in a guy said, "Hey, how have you been doing?" Grasshopper said, "Good, ¢¦ hmmm¢¦ I think I should know you". He reintroduced himself as Spruce, a guy we had met exactly a month ago! That put Grasshopper in complete shock, as she responded, "How'd you get here? You should be way ahead of us!" Turned out he took 5 days off and he's back on the trail with a friend and they're going to be heading to Maine together. It was pretty neat to see Spruce again. Spruce said that the 3rd member of Yeti¢s team, Team Deutschmark, has dropped out. We saw that he was no longer signing his name in the registers and wondered if they were down a member. I guess he was just done physically and mentally. It's hard to believe being this close and dropping out but physical injuries, as well as just not having fun anymore, can change one¢s goal. Their once 4-man team is now a 2-man team. Another member dropped out at the half way point for medical school.We made a side trip to the Hemlocks Lean-To to check the register to see what T&S and Blue were up to. Well, unfortunately, they had a pretty rough night. At 2:00 a.m. in the middle of a thunderstorm, Blue got scared and took off running and they couldn't find him. According to the register, someone found him the next morning and called T&S¢s cell phone, which they had listed in the register. They headed into Great Barrington to regroup.   When you take the dog issue out of the equation, T&S¢s first 2 weeks on the trail are quite funny in the sense of town stays versus camping. They stayed a night in Kent, camped for a night or two, stayed the night in Salisbury, camped a night and now they're spending the night in Great Barrington. They're having a tough second week on the trail but at least they found Blue. I think they're going to have to work something out because summer's here and thunderstorms are going to be one of the main events of the season. After our soppy, foggy, no view day, we set up our tent on a tent platform at the Glen Brook Lean-to overlooking a very beautiful forest of pine trees - an arboreal forest. The bugs were not out in force, so it was a very pleasant campsite.We spent some time this evening with the AMC ridge runner we met earlier in the week. He came over to eat his dinner at our platform while we were finishing up our camp chores. He's 24 years old and believe it or not, from just outside Unionville New York, where we spent time with the mayor! He finished his degree in English and Music in France and then moved to California. He works at an outdoor school during the academic year. He's done some extensive bike riding - from Unionville New York to Montreal, Cleveland, and one other town in the north that escapes my memory.   So for 24 years of age, he's seen quite a bit of the world already. Believe it or not, it's 8:25 and it's time for us to go to bed. We only have a 14.3-mile day planned for tomorrow but we have a hitch into Great Barrington and with the trail as slow as it was today, who knows what tomorrow will bring. It better be a lot faster, though, as we can't go one mile per hour and still get 14 miles in plus a hitch. We¢ve just studied the map and it's looking like there are some good flat spots so we're hoping for some good, quick trail. Goodnight from Massachusetts and 1500 miles - WOO HOO!