"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost..."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
Start: Cheshire, MA
Finish: North Adams, MA
Today: 14.7 mi
Total: 402.9 mi
Since we were hitching back to Cheshire only to walk back to our hotel in North Adams, we were able to experience the wonder that is "slack packing" once again. I left my tent, food bag, etc in the room and carried only the necessities. I was even able to convince Heather to allow me to carry her water in my pack so she was completely free of gear.
Our day went from good to great as we got a hitch after maybe 30 seconds. A mother and her daughter pulled over and the four of us hikers squeezed into their small Suzuki like it was a clown car. After getting to Cheshire we literally spilled out of the small car, big shoes, red foam noses and all.
I told Heather to lead us today and she did just that. She shot up the incline at a breakneck speed, maneuvering up the grade and over rocks like I've never seen her do before. Maybe I shouldn't have carried her water, snacks and rain jacket? If I could somehow carry all of Heather's gear we'll be in Maine in no time! In just 2 hours and 50 minutes we arrived at the summit of Mt Greylock, an 8.4 mile trek. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked at my watch. We had covered the tallest peak in Massachusetts at 3 mi/hr. What a ride!
After walking through two huge swarms of black flies that sounded like motorcycles, we took the obligatory picture at the summit and walked the 100 or so steps to the top of the observatory. The 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains were beautiful. We could see into NY, CT and VT. We relaxed at the summit for a couple of hours and even ran into a friend, Simple C and his girlfriend. We were happy to hear Simple C decided not to shave off his beard for his cousins wedding and caught up with him as we haven't seen him since PA.
Finally, we descended Mt. Greylock which proved a lot steeper than we expected. At places, it was so steep that if you turned around you could touch the ground you were just standing on. Finally we made it down. Two nice older ladies in a blue Prius drove us back to our hotel and later that night we ate an awesome dinner at the Hub. I can't wait for tomorrow!
~DADDY LONG LEGS
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