Date: 2015-07-12
From: Camp site 1579.0

To: Seth Warner Shelter
Miles today: 20.5
Weather: clear sky

We started the 2500 feet climb at 7:07. Nothing like starting the day off with a long climb. It was 7.3 miles. Some of the time we were hiking in a meadow, alot of the time in mud, some of the time climbing over rocks, some of the time throughoi until mountain laurel shrubs, some of the to8ime through mature forests, some of the time on nice trail, most of the time huffing and puffing and sweating profusely. But, we made it to the top of Greylock Mountain at 10:40. Not too bad for old people like us.    We arrived at the monument on Greylock. Bud and Bud Light had just arrived. (We met them at the hotel in Great Barrington.) We took pictures as the day was clear. There was a bit of humidity but clearer than normal.    We went into the lodge for lunch. Yes, a non-hiker fare lunch. Bud and Bud Light joined us. As we were talking with them, they mentioned they were glad to be hiking the trail at a young age, not old like 50. (That was why the comment was made in the previous paragraph about being old!!) It was nice to relax, again, and have lunch sitting on a chair and eating at a table. There was a jazz festival that was starting at Greylock. It would have been easy to just sit there all afternoon and be a "normal" tourist enjoying the festival. But, the trail called and we had to listen to the call.   We started the downward hike from Greylock. It was not a steady climb down. There were several ups and downs until we finished the descent of 2800 feet. The trail spit us out into Greylock town. Of course walking through a town, we always look for a place to buy drinks or food. We were highly disappointed when we finished walking through the town and found no store or soda machine. But, one house allowed us to use their water hose to fill our water bottles. No filtering necessary!!   When we go down to a town, there is always a climb. 1700 feet was the climb from Greylock town to the top of Cobble Mountain. We hiked along a very nice stream for 3/4 of the climb. This was unique as we hardly ever hike a y6hlong a stream. The sound of the stream was relaxing but the climb, well, not so much.   After the trail left the stream, we hiked through what appeared to be an underbrush forest fire. We could smell the burnt wood. Needless to say, it didn't smell very nice. We continued hiking and the trail lead us to a rock scramble. When we started the trail, we only knew of one rock scramble, the one at Lehigh Gap in Pennsylvania. We have completed so many rock scrambles that we are confused why only Lehigh Gap is the notable one. Go figure.   After the rock scramble, there was ta little ridgeline hiking. Then, we climbed a bit more. This brought us seeee25Tsewtdddeer2w32sto the Massachusetts/Vermont border. Yes, today, on our 100th day on the trail, we crossed into Vermont. Another milestone.    We hiked on and came to mud. Yes, lots and lots of mud. We had heard thmat it really isn't Vermont but Vermud. And, yes, the trail was muddy. Just like Massachusetts, we were hiking in a stream. Then there was mud, mud everywhere. We were reminiscing of the Soakies.   We found a campsite at 5:30. It was near a stream. But, it was only 5:30. This is a dilemma we often face. We have a perfect campsite but there is another hour of hiking in us. Do we take the campsite anyuiidu8h stop early or do we hike on? We had already hiked 18 zs. But, we came to a shelter. This will be our home tonight. We hiked the .2 miles into the shelter area. We were by a troop of boy scouts. We did find a nice flat area for our tent. We performed our nightly ritual of setting up camp.