Date: 2008-05-31
From: Goose Pond Cabin

To: Wilcox Mt South Lean-to
Miles today: 16.2

Ok so today is the day that I meet up with the Parade O¢Fools group. They were going to call me when they hit the trail and I would hike out and meet them. Slowfoot made his famous pancakes that I had been hearing about as I packed up my gear. I took a Snickers down and we chopped this up and put it in the pancakes. It was ok but not as great as I thought it would be. I maybe should have left them in bigger pieces. I ate like three of the pancakes and could not eat another bite. Shortly after this Tinker and his two friends Chatter and Freebird came walking up the trail. They decided to hike in to check out the cabin. Tinker had on a bug suit that looks like a ¢I Dream of Genie¢ after a bad sex change operation. I am just really glad that we are not heading into any towns today with him in that outfit.We all weighed our packs before we left. Well once again I packed way too much food. The fact that I have not had to cook anything for the last two meals kept the food bag weight up. With full water and everything I was up near 47Lbs. The other guys I think that the heavy pack was like 24lbs. I quickly told them all that they suck. We walked out and met up with River and his son Man Bear Pig at the junction with the AT. The Parade was in full force and heading out. I was amazed at how long it took me to walk the length of the pond that Chipmonk and I had paddled last night. At one point as we came out to the first road we came to I met Yeti and Toddy Bear sitting on the edge of the road having a bite of lunch. They were like the fourth group of people to tell us how bad the bugs were near Great Barrington. I had met the two of them back by the AT train stop on Memorial day when I was out weed eating my section.We had a late lunch near the Shaker Campground. We had had some rain not too long after meeting the guys having lunch but had mostly dried out. I was dragging some and needed to eat. We had gotten separated and so it was River and Man Bear Pig and I having lunch. As we began the climb up from the campground I fell back. The climb was really kicking my butt big time today. Those guys got ahead of me and after a bit I began to hear the rumble of thunder approaching. We had been talking all day that we would go to the Wilcox Mt South shelter for the night. As I walked through all the rain and lightning I slowly caught a second wind. Now when wet you begin to get to a point of ¢Oh well what else can go wrong at this point¢ I had this answered three times for me. First when I got to the Beartown Rd I had to step off to the side of the road as two pickups went by. It was like a scene out of a movie. As the second tuck passed it hit this big mud puddle and I got my head turned just in time to get nailed by a wall of muddy water. I just stood there watching them go down the road as the gritty water ran off of me. I got to the turn off for the Wilcox Mt North shelter and thought well maybe they went there due to the weather but there was no sign of this and as it was .3 down to the shelter I didn¢t want to do a .6 round trip to find out that they had in fact gone to the south shelter like we had talked about so I pushed on. With in one minuet of passing this junction I blinked and out popped my left contact lens. This would not be an issue but I lost my glasses on my last trip down in Va and had not had a chance to get new ones yet. So now I was hiking with only one good eye. I did find a ball cap on the side of the trail and wore this for the rest of he day it helped keep the rain off me some. Just a bit before dark and right about the time that I had figure I would be pulling into camp (7:18) I arrived at the turn off for the Wilcox S. shelter. So there I stood with one eye closed looking out of my good eye peering into the crowded shelter looking for the faces of my group when I hear someone excitedly shout ¢Oh my god you found my Hat¢ I tossed it to them among lots of laughter over the fact that not only had I found it but was wearing it. They said that there would be room for one more on a rainy night. I thanked them and then told them that I was glad to be here but none of them were the five guys I had been hiking with all day. This brought more laughter. It was a good group and the rain stopped long enough for me to get water and cook dinner. I talked with the Parade and we would meet up the next morning.Ascended 3350        Descended 2290        Duration 9:04Daily Miles 17.2 Grand Total 420.2