Date: 2012-08-03
From: Tom Leonard Shelter

To: Upper Goose Pond Cabin
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: clear sky

The picture is from yesterday's hike, a little bit of history along the trail.Today¢s hike struck me as relatively dumb and boring. Lots of trees and ups and downs. Same old, same old. Maybe I was tired, hungry, or hot. Likely all three, and consequently grumpy. I did run into one SOBO who promised the trail was devoid of rocks and roots. He was a big fat liar. Water was tough today too. There were quite a few beaver ponds along the trail, and any water nearby is likely to be, well in the words of Cleveland, "Oh that's nasty." There were 4 springs right in a row near the Shaker Campsite, but they had very little flow. I always prefer getting water from a pipe or a leaf spout rather than dipping my bottle into a pool of water; less sediment that way. I decided to push my luck and forgo water from these sources.Part of the day¢s hike went through Tyringham Cobble, a 206 acre nature reserve. Cobble Hill rises 400 feet above Tyringham valley, and of course provides little in the way of views or scenery. To add to the pleasure of this hike, there was a blue blaze that goes right around the hill (and I was pretty sure I'd see the other end of this side trail on the backside of the hill), instead of all over creation to get to the top. On the way back down, there was a road with a piped spring advertised. I walked up and down this road several times trying to find the piped spring and could not find it. So then I bushwhacked, paralleling the road, trying to find this spring. After clambering over barbed wire fences and large rocks, and through dense brush. I found an old bathtub in the woods. This bathtub was full of water. The water was coming out of a pipe that ran along the ground way up the hill, further than I could see. Out of the bottom of the bathtub ran a garden hose. I followed this hose back down the hill towards the road; back over the barbed wire onto a very very steep muddy 8 foot slope. Upon getting over the fence, I promptly slipped and slid all the way down to the road. There I found the end of the green hose hidden in green brush. A sign would have saved me some trouble. Only hiker trash would knowingly drink water out of an old bathtub that was sitting out in the woods. Unfortunately, I am that hiker trash.With all this hunting for water, EMT caught up to me and flew by. (I met EMT and Overdrive in Kent, CT, having breakfast with them.) I tried to match pace with him up the next mountain but he was just too fast. We were both on a mission to get to Upper Goose Pond Cabin for the night. The trail follows the shore of Upper Goose ¢Pond¢ for a mile (more like a lake) before arriving at the cabin. Along the shore I stumbled upon a naked woman. She was on the shore of the pond about 15 feet away, just standing up and starting to get dressed. The pond is only a mile or two from a road, so I guess this place is popular with the locals.Upper Goose Pond Cabin is a legitimate cabin with volunteer caretakers. It seemed like everyone was there: John Wayne, Lucky 10, Castaway (last saw him at the NOC Outfitters in Gatlinburg TN), and several others. The caretakers baked fresh chocolate chip cookies for us that evening. And the bunk room had legitimate bunks with real mattresses! However, it was a million degrees up in that room. To cool off before bed, with a full moon shining over the water, EMT and I joined some locals staying at the cabin for nightswimming. I couldn¢t stop singing the REM song in my head. It perfectly described the setting, except we didn¢t skinny dip. Another crew took out a canoe and paddled way out to an island. It was gorgeous out there.