Day 24: Dan filtering water

Dan pumping some water. Thanks Andy for letting us borrow your filter! All water out here should be treated before drinking. You can use a filter, they are heavier but make the water tasty and you can drink it right away. backpackers who are trying to have really light packs (minimalists) usually use iodine drops or tablets, or a few drops of bleach. these are small and light, but you have to wait a half hour before drinking it, and they taste kinda nasty. Havin a relaxing day with Dan, 4 mile hike to campsite, ate some junk food, built a fire, collected wood for tonight, played pass the pigs, and took a nap on a patch of grass. now we are going for a little walk to check out a pond nearby.

Day 23: Dan Harry Smoking Room

Met Dan (my brother) at 8am where the trail meets a road. some speed bumps in our plan: place we had planned to stay is no longer in business, it is the weekend and everything is booked, we desperately needed to do laundry and take showers. so, we found the closest motel for under $100. this place sucks, and it is a smoking room. showered, went to go see Harry Potter (yay!) and bought some beer and cigars for our smoking room. went to grocery store and got some treats for tomorrow night (corn on the cob and sausages) and some other treats for the trail (olive oil, peanut butter, nutella, jelly & naan). went out for lunch at Panchos while we did laundry. picture is of me feeding dan ice cream after dinner. now we are back in the motel, debating whether to sleep IN the beds, or ON the beds in our sleeping bags. oh, and when Chad went to plug in the fridge, he found a pink pair
of shorts behind it. yum. don't stay at the Heart of the Berkshires Motel. goodnight!

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Day 22: The Cookie Lady

18 miles today :) our personal best. it can be attributed to the pancakes this morning, the flattest terrain we have seen, and the day of rest we had the day before. we left at 7:45 this morning, walked over the 90 (mass turnpike) summited 2 unimpressive mountains with poor views, then went to go visit the famous "cookie lady". she lives .1 miles off the trail, and bakes about 1500 cookies each year for hikers. they own a u-pick blueberry farm, and we went wild. they gave us buckets with strings to wear around our necks to collect the blueberries. they were the biggest blueberries i have ever seen! $2/lb! pressed on from there to the Kay Wood shelter, where a caretaker is staying and a group of high schoolers from inner city NYC out on their first camping trip. they are on a 4 day trip and will be climbing graylock. nice to have some company on the trail with so much energy!
tonight we are eating about 3 dinners, because we will resupply tomorrow. dan meets us in the am!

Day 21: Zero at Upper Goose Pond Cabin

this place is awesome. we didnt hike ar all today, it is like a vacation within a vacation. a caretaker stays at the cabin for a week, cooks pancakes (ours were blueberry) and makes coffee in the morning. they have canoes you can take out, we went to a little island and had lunch (rice with veggies). our new friends Trump (19 years old) and Mark Trail (old man, went to the same high school as Chad, small world!) joined us out on the island. we drank some scotch and talked for hours. we played in the canoes, raced, laughed a lot and are back on shore now. caretaker is making us all a spaghetti dinner! lots of hikers coming in for the night. learning some new card games so we can play something other than rummy and scat. we will leave early tomorrow and hope to get 10 miles in before lunch.

Day 20: Luxury on the Trail!

arrived at upper goose pond cabin, it is amazing. each week a new caretaker comes, and makes pancakes in the morning. it is on a really nice pond, and they have canoes you can use. bunk room upstairs with 10bunk beds (with mattresses!). had a campfire and ate s'mores. and, it is free :)

Day 19: t-storm

no service yesterday, and no pics bc i kept my phone tucked away to keep it dry. we hiked about 10 miles from tom leonard shelter to shaker's campsite. nice morning, then on the trail, we saw a huge pile of bear poop. then, it went from bright out, to very dark very fast (around 3pm). we started hiking FAST. then chad had the excellent idea to hop off the trail and set up a little shelter with the rain fly of the tent, some rope, sticks and trees. worked pretty well. lots of laughing, chad cooked a nice hot meal of pasta primavera (thanks chad's mom!) while i manned the fort (quite literally holding sticks to hold up the tarp). we trucked on to the campsite after the rain was done. met a hiker named shark. he is a professional poker player. lived in niagara falls for awhile playin at the casino. passed out fast and slept well.

fungus amung us

edible? looks like it is from under the sea.

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