Hiking n camping

Just got back from a great weekend of hiking and camping with laura in the Berkshire mountains on the Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine and takes 4-8 months to traverse in its entirety. We started on friday afternoon from central square, picking up a rental car from the nearby corner Enterprise that Laura secured with a little flirtation for a mere $67 for fri-sun (returnable at any time!); this followed picking up food from Shaw's and Harvest for the trip.

We headed out, directions in hand, out down I-90 west through MA-20 to Jacob Ladder Scenic Way, about a 2 hour drive due west. We arrive, park the car at the designated spot, then wandered around a bit trying to find where the trail actually begins (for us). Finally, we locate the stairs to descend southwards across I-90 and through the woods 1.6 miles from the parking area. We first follow the wrong trail about a quarter of a mile, not fully appreciating the fact that the A.T. (as it's known) is clearly marked by white "blazes", or paint marks typically on trees, every 100 feet or so, and so following orange diamonds is certainly not the correct path. But we figured it out and arrived at our destination: Upper Goose Pond Cabin. And quite a cabin it was indeed. It was in fact someone's old house donated to the AT and so was well-equipped with a full kitchen, living room, front porch etc. There happened to be a bunch of hikers there at the time, including RoboJesus (explained below), but we arrived right around sundown and were hungry, and given that hikers apparently typically sleep right at sundown, we were quick to put up a tent and get in to take advantage of the fancy kitchen to cook some food.

As an important aside, I found out right away that it is tradition to have a trail name different from your real name and that this trail name is to be your official name that you give to others on the trail. Typically this trail name is given to you based on some initial encounters early on in the journey, but occasionally folks name themselves as well. For us as simple weekenders, we named ourselves first "Smores" as a unit but then changed to myself as "Hurricane" and Laura as "Ant Hill". Folks found them to be unique.

As we cooked and set up, we interacted with the cabin caretaker Maaret (muh-RHET), who was a bit of a strange girl in her mid-20s from New York who had been working as caretaker one week per summer each year since she was eight. She is of dutch origin, and apparently her dad attempted to give her a Dutch first name but failed to follow basic Dutch grammar rules (two consonants following double-a's? something like that) and thus ended up bestowing upon her a name that is a combination of Finnish and Estonian. She works with deaf people, and was fun and nice though certainly odd at times. We also met RoboJesus, who was this middle-aged man with a cute dog named Patches (who also had a trail name, but I can't remember it) who told us of a story where they were on the trail and Patches was going to the bathroom, and RoboJesus saw a bear flying down the hill aiming to snatch the dog. He quickly ran towards the bear yelling and slapping his walking sticks against everything until at the last moment the bear noticed him, slid to a stop, and ran back up the hill. It was cute, he clearly loves his dog.

Our final notable social encounter was a bit more interesting. We were readying to eat our food (couscous, refried beans, cheese, salsa--not actually a great combination unfortunately) when Circle Walker (sorry, all I ever want to say is circle jerk), a nice quiet, though surprisingly timid middle-aged woman, comes in exclaiming that there is a bear near our tent. We were immediately shocked and weren't sure what to do. According to her she was in her tent very near to ours, heard something loud and heavy rustling outside, looked out and saw the animal hovering around our tent but not moving, and she quickly moved away and into the cabin; soon after she noted that she never actually saw the animal, and so perhaps it was something else, too. Nonetheless, we became very concerned that the tent retained some residual food scent from its recent use by Laura's sister Dana and her fiancee Colin at Bonaroo last week. After cautiously cleaning our dishes out back, us two and Circle Walker ventured over to the tents to check it out. We saw nothing, and it appeared our tent was undisturbed. That said, none of us had any interest in sleeping in tents while bears are around, and so headed inside for the night; this decision was also made based on RoboJesus noting earlier that he too was pretty sure he saw a bear lingering around the cabin earlier in the day.

Laura and I crashed with our sleeping bags on the floor (the upstairs had open bunks, but everyone was sound asleep and apparently it was extremely smelly up there), and Laura taught me how to play Hi-Lo-Jack, which is quite similar to a combination of Dirty Clubs and a couple of other trump games that I can't recall but have learned.

The next morning, we packed up, cooked breakfast (eggs, bagels), took a quick ride in the canoe on the lake, and then headed out. This time, we went back north to the parking area then continued northwards on the trail another 7.5 miles to the October Mountain lean-to (a simple shelter with a few wooden bunks). It was a fairly tiring hike, full of plenty of steep inclines and declines, as we went up to the top of Becket mountain (~2300 ft), then across a couple of similar peaks, then down to Finerty pond, around and up Bald top, and then back down to the lean-to.

Along the way, we stopped a couple of times to rest and eat, though the weather was generally cool and cloudy, and it drizzled a bit for a time but nothing significant. We also passed Lights Out, an older, jolly man who would later catch up to us at the lean-to. He also caught up with us after we followed a portion of the trail that had been remade as a detour but which still lacked blazes, but which clearly was the correct path after we also found the old path (including blazes) lined with trees and large branches, obviously indicating that it was no longer the correct path.

By around 430p, we arrived at the lean-to, set up the tent (so that we'd have plenty of time to see if any bears showed up before sundown), pumped some water using Laura's new filter, and relaxed a moment. In the meantime, Archeopteryx, another less jolly older man who claimed to be from New Zealand, and Boo and Scout, an interesting couple in their mid-50s (though they looked younger), had shown up. Laura and I announced our intentions to build a fire and cook, something that was unheard of among our fellow campers to our disbelief--most apparently simply boil water over a camping stove, and moreso eat basic undergrad-like things such as ramen. We first took a walk into the woods (shelter in sight, no bears), had a little fun, then wandered back and began to build our fire. We sauteed the remainder of our peppers and onion, cooked up some couscous, and made some delicious veggie quesadillas to the awe of our older compatriots. We shared a bit of our extra food, and then all of us indulged in our large stash of smore ingredients as we shared stories, mostly from the couple.

According to the couple, they were classmates in highschool in texas, grew up separately and "had families and jobs" (Boo a lawyer, Scout in administration), then ran into each other again "35 years later" (so around 50) and decided apparently on the spot to quit their jobs, presumably leave their families, and run away to go on adventures. They lived in the DR, went diving, hiking, etc. What emerged from all of this was an interesting realization of who actually embarks on the complete AT journey, which requires at least 4 months of your life: those who can choose to have no responsibility for at least 4 months in a row. The people we met who were hiking the full trail were typically older men alone, or else small groups of young people, along with this couple.

In either case, we imagined that, ignoring the simple young adventure-seekers, perhaps the AT-ers can be broken up into 2 categories: the ones looking to find nature and the ones looking to escape the real world (not necessarily mutually exclusive). In the former, we have the uber-outdoorsy, many of whom likely did the trail when they themselves were young adventure seekers and who, with the kids out of the house, are now more free to take on the adventure once again. In the latter, we have the life-seekers, many of whom were spurred on by a traumatic, life-jarring event: a divorce, a death, a mid-life crisis--anything that makes one re-evaluate their life and/or their past decisions such that they want to get away from everything to find/remake themselves again.

Obviously, these are far too great of generalizations. But Boo and Scout were perfect examples of this latter group: they actively gave up their former lives ("we're homeless.... we have a house, we just don't live in it") and all of the responsibilities attached to them in order to seek adventure and absolute freedom. Similarly, among the plethora of older men that we encountered, the obvious question that arises is: where is your family? Perhaps they remained single throughout life, perhaps they had a family and left it, perhaps the family left them. Whatever it is, it's hard to imagine in our modern society someone maintaining a complete lack of responsibility: people have jobs and pay bills and have loved ones to attend to. Thus, it's hard to imagine that a single person can pursue a journey like the AT without first severing--or having severed--important ties to a well-established life. Exploring the motivation of these hikers would make for quite a fascinating documentary.

In any case, following dinner and smores, we headed to bed in our tent and, after a good 30 minutes of general fear and discussion about the possibility of a bear coming near us and our complete lack of knowledge of what we should do in such a scenario--regardless of whether the bear actually cares about our presence or not--we fell asleep, awoke the next morning, and had a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal by the fire. Boo and Scout headed out shortly after we awoke. We then cleaned up and headed back to the car, playing 20 questions and team construct-a-sentence games along the way.

On the way home, we grabbed some delicious strawberries from a road-side berry farm and store, and then grabbed some tasty food at the Shenanigans at Westfield (I thought this was a chain, but I think that's just from Super Troopers). I'll only note it briefly, but Westfield was depressing, as literally probably half of the stores were shut down permanently--an abundantly clear sign that the recession continues.

And now I am home. Quite sore, but well worth it for a great weekend.