Date: 2022-07-08
From: Bascom Lodge Mile 1590.3

To: Congdon Shelter Mile 1610.8
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: overcast clouds

When we woke up at 4:45 AM and looked out the window to the south it was foggy. However there was some clear sky in the east so we headed out and climbed up to the summit of Mount Greylock to take in the sunrise. It was nice but there were clouds on the horizon and mist blowing over the mountain from the south so unfortunately it was not a great sunrise.We were hoping to get out early but the ¢boys¢ took a while to get ready and so we made it out earlier than usual but not as early as we were originally planning. Orchid will say that she always waits for the boys in the morning (yeah that¢s absolutely true).With eating breakfast, packing up, and the privy it seems like it takes me about an hour and a half to get going in the morning.The descent from Mount Greylock started pretty steep but it transitioned into a more gradual descent as we went down. We headed out to Mount Prospect ledges overlook and had a great view down to Williamstown and North Adams, MA. At the bottom of the descent we had about a three-quarter mile road walk through town.In town there was an AT community message board with some trail magic including drinks and snacks. We caught up with Grits here and ended up seeing her several more times during the day and at the campsite. Just after passing through town I reach the 1/3 mark of the Appalachian Trail and did the obligatory marker and photo app.Following that was a long climb ending with a boulder field to navigate through. I felt like we were back in Pennsylvania again. One last hurrah from Massachusetts before we cross the state line. At the top of the mountain was a large burn area from a fire last summer. It¢s remarkable how quickly the forest can recover if it is not a super hot fire. A short time later Pilgrim reached his 1600 mile mark and then barely a mile later we reached the Vermont border. For the first 105 miles in VT the Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail overlap before the AT splits off to the east and the LT heads north.We did get a number of views throughout the day of the surrounding mountains and towns in the valley. One thing we¢ve noticed is that there is definitely not as much Spongy Moth damage in the Massachusetts mountains as there was down in Connecticut. There¢s some small areas of brown, but they are generally small portion of the mountain and somewhat far apart.It seem like almost immediately in Vermont there was a change in the mountains, forest and the trail. It just seemed significantly more like a wilderness then Massachusetts did. Not sure if this is because there was more thicker underbrush or trees but I certainly have noticed an increase in the amount of mud for which Vermud is known. At that point we still had over 10 miles to get to camp, definitely a long day with a bunch of climbing. I was definitely feeling the longer day today than we¢ve done in a while - 20.4 miles with 4000 feet of elevation gain. At camp we also saw Roller who I met on day 1 with Pilgrim and who Pilgrim hiked with for a while. By the time we set up camp, ate dinner, and got the food bags hung it was already well after sunset.Steps 33900Weather Forecast: 82/59Jen (my awesome video editor) also created a website to consolidate info: https://atwithduckie.wixsite.c..