hiking journal: 7.19.08

How did it get to be 2008 already? I am turning into an old person. Anyway, on Saturday (7.19.08), we drove to Great Barrington, MA, about a two-hour drive from our house, and found the spot on Route 7 where the Appalachian Trail crosses the road, right where I hitched a ride into Great Barrington six years ago and gave up on Maine, for the second time. We took a couple of pictures and I headed north on the trail. I walked and ran for 0.9 miles, around a couple of cornfields along the Housatonic River, until I reached the parking lot where Sean and Maple were waiting for me. (They had driven around the corner to park in the trail parking lot, but I, being the compulsive person that I am, needed to hike past all the white blazes from the Rt 7 road crossing to the parking lot.)

We headed north from the car, road-walking over the Housatonic River and re-entering the woods just on the the other side of the river. Maple was walking along slowly with her new backpack, but as soon as we entered the woods, a million mosquitoes swarmed around us and commenced their attack. Poor Maple got hurried along through this mess, sweetly at first, until the magnitude of the problem became obvious to us. We ran, I pushed Maple to make her move faster, until we finally reached the next cornfield. Sean threw off the kid-carrying pack and scooped Maple into it, I stuffed Maple's pack into my day pack, and we ran, hoping to get away from the swarm. We moved quickly through that cornfield and across a road and back into the woods. Even as we started climbing, we were still being attacked. (My theory that elevation will leave the swamps and the mosquitoes behind? Not quite right. Or not quite right enough. You have to get really high up before the mosquitoes go away.) Sean's ear swelled up like a small cabbage, and I swatted groups of five and six mosquitoes off my arms every thirty seconds or so.

We climbed up and up, as fast as we (or I) could go. I was wheezing and snorting and trying desperately to breathe and climb out of mosquito hell. In the end Sean figured out that I was getting a little crazy in my nostalgia and desperation to hike the rest of the AT before I can't hike anymore, and so he convinced me to slow down. He did this so sweetly and calmly that I started crying. This was good because I was probably going to have a heart attack like that. He said that we could go home if I wanted, that it wasn't worth doing it if I was miserable, and he was sweet about that too. But I really really wanted to keep hiking, because I'm desperate to hike the rest of the AT before I can't hike anymore.

Maple was a great sport through the whole thing. After a while we got to another road (the AT in Massachusetts crosses a road every few miles), and stopped for a break. Sean said more nice things, we rested, batted mosquitoes away, and ate a snack. After that we climbed up some more and finally escaped from the mosquito zone. We had lunch, perched on a boulder, overlooking a valley (the weather was a little warm, but otherwise perfect).

After lunch, Maple got to try some scrambling with her new backpack. She is as she's been for three years -- slow, methodical, and careful. She walked for an hour, covering hardly any distance, but getting her footing over rocks and down hills and on the edges of cliffs. We were so proud of her. When she fell, which was rare, she got right up and kept going. She'll be a great hiker by the time she does her thru-hike. (We're thinking we'll wait until she's 10).

After about 6 miles, I started to get worried we were lost. I know from being on the Trail for 1500 miles that you can't get lost if you are following the white blazes, but it's been a long time since I hiked those 1500 miles and I had lost my faith in that. We looked at the map and the guidebook a few times (I never had such superfluous items while thru-hiking!) and eventually gave up on locating our position. We decided we would get to the road eventually if we just kept following the white blazes. There weren't really any landmarks to speak of, which is pretty typical. It's also very common to feel like some miles take 15 minutes and others take 45 minutes -- I think that's a combination of the fact that the terrain is so different in each mile, and that the mapping of the trail (from back in the day when these maps were made) wasn't perfect.

At 6.5 miles, we'd descended enough that the mosquitoes started to come back, and we went past Ice Gulch, a fascinating spot where there are huge rock walls about 100' apart that rise up out of the ground. (We were standing at the top). The ice doesn't melt in the gulch until May or June, and it's very cool at the bottom in any time of year. Standing on the edge makes you feel as though you might fall in.

At 7.5 miles we hit the road crossing at Lake Buel Road. We didn't have a cell phone signal to call the taxi, so Sean had to walk down the street a ways to use the phone at a summer camp. The taxi came and rescued us from the mosquitoes, and brought us back to our car for a mere $26. (It's cheaper to hitchhike and get mugged!)

I still have 655 miles to go. But I have two great hiking partners, and I think I might make it to Maine. Maybe I'll get there by the time I stop scratching...