Day 81 – 87 | Town Hopping through CT and MA

Day 81  1480.4 – 1495.3 (14.9)

The rain cooled things down considerably, so we slept better. We were slow waking up and getting out of camp, filling the morning with conversation with flip floppers. 

The trail for the day continued next to the Housatonic River for a few miles, making for easy flat walking.From there the trail steeply climbed the ridge, parallelling the river for the rest of the day.

In the late morning Osha and Oscar caught up to us and let us know the Osha’s mother was planning on hosting some trail magic ahead. 

When we crossed the road, low and behold they were there with platters of sandwiches, cold drinks, and a 5 lb. bag of blue sour patch kids. 

The animal instinct must have kicked in because we were back on trail for about 15 minutes when the skies opened up. We scrambled up the hill to the shelter, drenched by the time we arrived. We waited out the storm for another half hour. We made it to camp without much more rain, camping just outside of Falls Village, CT.

Day 82 1495.3 – 1513.9 (18.6)

Through the night it continued raining, but by the morning it cleared. We had a short .8 mile walk into town and the Mountainside Cafe. We stopped in for an early 2nd breakfast of French toast, a pork belly wrap, and coffee. 

With a full stomach and a coffee to go we continued the walk along the river and closer to the main part of town. There town, aptly named, had the Great Falls, which we enjoyed seeing on the journey. 

Out of town the trail climbed Mt Prospect, with beautiful river forge views. We then proceed to drop back into a valley, walking through the town of Salisbury. 

…. If my writing seems repetitive, wherein we climb, then we descend, then we climb, ad nauseum, you should try hiking it lol…. 

From there we climbed Bear Mountain, the highest point in Connecticut. We were greeted with fine views from the top of a large rock pile.

We descended down the mountain crossing into Massachusetts. As we entered Mass, the trail followed a gorgeous creek in old grove pine forest. We camped at a designated spot with our own tent platform. (I take pride in being able to pitch a non free standing tent in any situation,  what was effectively a wooden deck was a good challenge) 

Day 83 1513.9 – 1528 (14.1)

We continued our hike down the creek, passing by a pristine swimming hole (though it was a bit too cold to partake). 

There were two big climbs in the day and one final big descent. The trail took us on a rocky ridge, which offered better than normal views for an extended period of time. 

We covered the last few flat miles before our hitch point into Great Barrington. 

We caught a hitch with a lovely woman named Jodie, checked into our hotel, and ate dinner at a local diner. 

Day 84 zero (0)

It’s not normally my modus operandum to take a zero but we wanted more time in town to rest and clean gear, so we had scheduled the hotel a few nights before. 

We enjoyed our zero, taking time to clean gear, do laundry, resupply, eat, and walk around town. 

Day 85 1528 – 1541.5 (13.5)

We chose to sleep in,  emorial Chapel. We headed down the road and were delighted that the magic was there. We enjoyed the hot food and cold drinks. 

The five more miles we did that day were rough, fairly steep, and had lots of mosquitos and flies. We ate dinner at the North Wilcox Shelter in our tent. 

Day 86 1541.5 – 1555.7 (14.1)

The day was pretty uneventful, we went up and down many times. We had lunch at a self service stand that sold ice cream and soda from a fridge. We got sodas. Sassafras lost her bug net, but fellow hiker Hippy picked it up on her hike and returned it to her. 

Our destination, however, lived up to the hype. We heard about Upper Goose Pond from a trail angel, Vlobster, back in Pennsylvania. He is a caretaker there and spoke very highly of it. 

It is a two story house that has 16 bunks with mattresses, a rotating staff of volunteer caretakers, and a killer spot on the pond. 

We made it there by late afternoon and checked in. We took out one of the canoes and paddled to the island and the connected pond. 

Day 87 1555.7 – 1576.1 (20.4)

Someone in the bunk room snored very loud. Even with ear plugs I barely slept. I got out of bed around 5:30 for pancakes, attempted to go back to bed to catch some sleep, but to no avail.

As an aside, if you are thru hiking or just doing a section be considerate if you plan to stay in the shelters / hostels; such as wearing a mouth guard if you snore. 

I spent the morning hiking fast to stave off my tiredness. By mid afternoon we were at the Cookie Lady 2.0’s house. Where a family carries on the tradition of a long time trail angel by offering free coockies and lemonade plus lunch for trade for picking blue berries. We spent an hour picking blueberries, and enjoyed a home cooked meal. 

By 5:00pm we made it to Dalton, MA; where we pitched tent in a long time trail angel’s backyard. Levardi has by hosting hikers since 1979. 

After setting up camp we walked with a four other hikers to get ice cream, playing a great game of chess while snacking, and then walked to get sub sandwiches. 

We made it was back to Levardi’s and hung out with many hikers till hiker midnight (9:00pm)