Date: 2008-07-28
From: Mass 8 & 9, Dalton, MA

To: Greylock Summit Area
Miles today: 17.9

Today was a great day to be my last full day on trail. It started when Blues Traveler asked me to go to breakfast, but i said i was gonna sleep in. A half hour or so later everyone else was up when i got up to go to the bathroom. So me and Double D went out to a great breakfast, then to post office for a last maildrop pickup.Back at Tom's, i took what little i needed and planned to give out the rest as a hiker box at Toms, but a crew of hikers i knew like moccasin, orange dust, the guy from Kansas, came through like some piranas and got the box taken care of no problem. Absolute best to the them, especially Moc, i hope you do go see some real wilderness in the future. AK?Got over the next mountain range real easy, made friends with some cool SOBO thrus at a viewpoint along the way. In Chesire, i the AT goes by a ice cream stand and i got 2 soft serves. While eating them i got a little bit of the limelight when some elderly couples that were bicycling stopped at the stand. I talked to them about the bikes, as i am a bicyclist myself, and they hadn't heard about the AT or that they were actually on the trail. Without a thruhiker to be found, i told them of my 150 mile trek that i was doing and that i was going from Dalton to Greylock today. They were amazed and had lots of questions for me. What a treat for me, i was humored on my last full day.Hiking out Chesire, you go up these steep hayfields overlooking town. As the highest point as the trail enters the woods above, i decided to take a real good break and ponder leaving the trail tomorrow. I broke out the beverages that i carried all the way from Dalton and enjoyed myself before the large climb (Tallest mountains since VA). The spot was one of the most scenic and coolest on the section. From it, you saw the mountains that you hiked into town on, the cliffy viewpoint where i met the SOBOs at, a large open sky with the fluffy clouds that you think you are able to see shapes in, a breeze that blew and trickled through all the foothigh blades of grass on the field on front of me, and the faint sound of the traffic on Mass 8. What a great day i thought to myself, and what a great journey. It's an experience, and it's therefore not always perfect or even fun. But there was alot of gratification and satisfaction and meaning in my thoughts that day.But a trip is never done until it's done, especially when you are traveling on foot. So after spending a little time with Double when he came to the spot after the PO, we cranked up to the Mark Nopel lean-to with it's super funk privy that i used. Some cool people were there and after snackin i flew up the 3.5+ miles to the summit. The summit was lit up by the globe on the top of the massive monument. That what i'm talking about, a real monument, this thing is 93 feet tall and looks just huge! Bascom lodge was closed, as it will be till 2009, but i was fine with watching the last bit of the great sunset, and looking down over the town of Adams, MA all lit up at night. What a great finale to my hike to be at the tallest, and the way baddest mountain of the hike on my last night of the trek. And i was all alone for this experience, which really made it mine. A truely great evening.