Hiking the Massachusetts AT

Summary
Owner	MITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date	2005-06-07 01:02:55 UTC-0400
Description	Hiking the Massachusetts AT Date: May 29, 30, 2005 Location: Applachian Trail between Cheshire and Rt. 20 (southbound) Participants: Chris Glazner, Brenden Epps, Nasko Pavlov, Matt Ketterling Trip Report Originally, this trip was going to be on the AT in Maine, but changed after it worked out schedule-wise for Brenden and myself to do it closer to home on Sunday-Monday. We announced it on the MITOC list, got four people, and by Saturday night, we were down to two others for a nice cozy 4 person group. Brenden sent me a cool picture of him on Warner Mt. from his northbound hike of the entire AT last year. He really liked this stretch because it was filled ful of ferns, so we did it with him again, this time going southbound. I met Brenden, Matt, and Nasko where the AT crosses Rt. 20, ditched my car, and then we were off to Cheshire to the north. We parked at a rail park in Cheshire that has a really nice bike path. We parked Brenden's car at a nice parking spot by the trail, and then headed out around 3ish (yes, we actually planned to start that late). The original plan was to start in Dalton, but we figured that just wasn't enough for us, so we extended things a bit out to Cheshire. The hike was nice and plesant--we had great weather, in the 60's, partly cloudy. We were soon rewarded with a nice view over the town in the valley, and encountered the first thru-hiker we saw up from Georgia, who was making great time. As it turns out, he had run into a friend that Brended had hiked with last year--Great Grandma--a few days ago, and Brenden was excited about the idea of being able to see her. She actually is a grandma, so hikes slow, but was apparently a great lady. Unfortunately, we never saw a sign of her, checking log books at every turn to see if she had been by yet. We continued on through rolling terrain until we suddenly dropped into the nice little town of Dalton. The trail runs right through town--a residential neighborhood. We happened to walk by a gathering of people who were having a party, and after seeing us, they invited us to come up and get some food! We hesitated, out of politeness, but they inisted that they were done and they had plenty of leftovers. Amazed at their generosity, we stepped onto their front lawn and loaded out plates up with pretty good BBQ chicken. It turns out that it was actually a baby shower. The proud mom to be welcomed us, and proudly informed us that "this is what happens when you have drunken sex. Me and that one over there used to split a 30 pack every weekend, and this is where it got us." Well, we didn't quite know how to respond to that, so we just smiled politely. We then played "guess the baby food", and were then questioned about the quality of life in Texas when working at either minimum wage or as a day laborer. See, I think the father was looking for a job down there. The grandmother-to-be told us about her father, who loved to sit in the front window and wave to all of the "stick people" (ie, us, people with trekking poles) hiking the "Mohawk Trail" that was routed right in front of their house. All I'll say is that they were very nice people, and good cooks to boot, and that even Massachusetts has rednecks. I felt kinda homesick. Back on the trail. We were going to eat dinner in town, but didn't have to thanks to our episode of "Trail Magic." Good thing too: the restaraunts in town were close, on account of the fact it was Sunday. We pressed on, into the woods, and hiked past sunset until we reached Kay Wood shelter. It was a really nice shelter, with bunks and a loft in it. We didn't stay up too long before we hit the sack in the comforts of the shelter. Next morning we were off, hiking up a storm. Again, rolling hills, with only one good lookout, which we lounged at for quite some time. This was Warner Mt., the picture that Brenden had sent me earlier in the week. Only this time it wasn't covered in larger-than-life ferns, but little baby ferns that were just making their way out after a very late spring. We devoured a bag of BBQ potato chips (as Brenden informed us, the most calories per oz of any food) and were back to the rolling hills. Surprisingly, desipite the two weeks of steady rain, things weren't that muddy and there weren't that many bugs....until now. We crossed several boggy sections, keeping a brisk enough pace to stay ahead of the blackflies. We reached a road crossing, and Brenden annouced that the "Cookie Lady" lived nearby. We took a short walk up the road, saw a house, and walked up the driveway. There was an older lady in the garage. When she saw us, she just walked inside. Brenden seemed comfortable with this, but we were a little spooked. She then came out a few minutes later with a basket of cookies for us! Apparently, she has a reputation for providing cookies to all the through hikers that come by her house. Brenden had come by last year, but she wasn't home. She even brought out last year's log book, and found where he had signed in. After a little while, her husband came up, and when he found out that Brenden and I were in aero/astro, he told us about his amazing career on the Atlas rocket program. The cookie lady's husband was a rocket scientist? The rest of the hike was, well, hot, had a lot of blackflies, and not much to see. Still, we had a good time. We stopped for lunch at another shelter. We all gave Nasko a hard time previously because he packed a ton of food for the hike, while we had these tiny packs without all the needless "extras." At this lunch though, we were thankful that Nasko brought it and was kind enough to share all of his wonderful food with th rest of us :) After 20 minutes were back on our way. From then on, it was just rolling hill hiking through forests, with the occasional pond for variety. We reached my car at around 7, satisfied with a good trip. No, we didn't have huge elevation, or the breathtaking above treeline views many of us were used to, but we got an amazing feeling for what it's like on the AT. The moral of this trip should be "it's not where you're going; it's how you get there, and the people you meet on the way." From the drunken-sex mom-to-be to the Cookie Lady, we met some really kind people, and got to experience the ins and outs of life on America's most popular trail. Sorry, no pics on this one. Still havne't got a new battery after the last one was lost to Clivus.