Date: 2019-07-22
From: Brassie Brook shelter 

To: MA 41
Miles today: 12.8

Day 112I slept for 10 hours from 7pm to 5am. The rest was great for me to recover from the traveling and getting better from my sour throat. Fully rested and refreshed, I started hiking by 6:10am. It was much cooler today. Humidity was also down. It was very pleasant to hike all morning. Shortly after leaving the shelter, I came to a junction that goes to Bear Mountain along A.T. in one direction, and goes around Bear Mountain in another. I chose the longer but easier option: goes around the mountain top. I still don¢t trust my knee to go down steep rocks. If there is an alternative, I¢ll choose that. So I went to the side trail. It¢s almost flat, and passed through a bog trail, an AMC cabin, and a trail following a small creek nearly parallel to CT/MA state line. In about 30 minutes it rejoined A.T. right before the state line. At the location where CT/MA state line intersects with A.T., there was no official marker! Only a line drawn by hiking pole on the ground marked that crossing. Later I understood why. The trail goes along Sage Ravine Brook for about 1.5 miles. Even though most of that area is within Massachusetts, it is actually managed by Connecticut. Therefore the Massachusetts message only appears when the trail leaves Sage Ravine Brook. This area is a fragile environment, bubbling creek with many swimming holes, dense forest, twisted roots wrapping around mossy rocks, cool, dark, and has that magical fairy tale forest kind of atmosphere. When I passed through it, I held my breath unconsciously, afraid of making unnecessary sounds that could break the magical spells casted on that area.This magical place was followed by open views on Race Mountain. The A.T. runs along open ledges where I saw green forest and shiny lakes down below, rocky paths with one side of dropping cliff, weather beaten pines and oaks only grow to dwarf size. Blueberry bushes were at ankle height loaded with ripe berries, so tasty and sweet. I put my backpack down to go berries picking. In 5 minutes, I got many handful of juicy berries.Before noontime, I reached Mt. Everett. A few foot posts of a fire watch tower marked the top of the mountain. The tower burned down in 2002, leaving the posts as a good bench for hikers to take a rest.   When I got down from Mt. Everett to Guilder Pond trail head parking, a few day hikers were doing trail magic with ice cold water and cookies. It was very nice to have the  fresh clean cool water available when the water from nearby creeks was all brown. I had my lunch at Glen Brook shelter tenting area. This was my planned camping location. But since it was so early in the day, I had not felt tired, and the rain was still not coming yet, I decided to hike more, down to road 41. An hour later, the rain started, firstly light drops, then steady rain. I was looking for camping spots, but didn¢t found anyone good enough to stay. So I kept hiking till I reached that road at 4:30pm. By that time I was pretty wet. Even though I was not tired, I had given up the camping option and booked a hotel about 6 miles away in the town of Great Barrington. Getting to the hotel was a lot more difficult than I expected. After more than 10 calls to the hotel and taxi company, 3 tries on Uber, more than 30 times raised my arm and thumb to hitchhike, I was still at the trail head with pouring rain for 2 hours. In desperate, I called Karen - an A.T. thru-hiker of 1994, whom was listed in the A.T. guide book. I contacted Karen earlier today at noontime hoping she would have available room for rent. But she had full house today and cannot spare any room for me. When I called her again after 6:20pm, explained my awkward situation, she immediately came to my rescue! In 5 minutes, I was in her truck on the way to my hotel. She¢s not only helped me today, but also arranged her partner to pick me up from the hotel tomorrow morning to send me back to the trail head. What a wonderful trail angel she is! Thank you so much, Karen! With Karen¢s help, now I am dry and comfortable in the hotel room ready to have a good night sleep.