Day: 098
Date: Monday, 31 July 2023
Start: Sheffield-Egremont Road (AT Mile 1527.2)
Finish: South Mount Wilcox Shelter (AT Mile 1540.6)
Daily Kilometres: 23.4 (Ascent 2933', Descent 1795')
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 2575.7
Weather: Mild and mostly sunny with a couple of showers in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Motel's buffet breakfast
Lunch: Ham, cheese & tomato sandwiches
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - some niggles; Julie - mosquito bites.
Highlight: None really.
Lowlight: None really.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
It was late by the time we got to bed last night, so we slept in, having booked our shuttle back to the trail for 9:30am. We had the motel's modest buffet breakfast in their dining room and Julie then bought supplies for the next couple of days from the nearby organic supermarket, which didn't have a lot of options.
Our shuttle driver arrived on time and we were at the trailhead 15 minutes later, where we met Grits, the old thru-hiker we first met way back in the Smoky Mountains about 10 weeks ago. It was good to see he was still going (and he is camped at the same place as us tonight). At the trailhead we were told there was Trail Magic at a road crossing a couple of miles further on, which we didn't really need, having just gorged ourselves at the motel. However, never ones to pass up a cold drink, we did stop and also had pressed on us some food. The Trail Magic was provided by a church organization who apparently do it every day of the week during hiker season.
By the time we left there it was 10:45am and we clearly weren't going to get a lot of miles done today. Although the early trail was flat as it crossed a valley, we were soon climbing again onto a forested mountain. This part of Massachusetts has been settled for a long time so, although the trail could often have been passing through wilderness miles from anywhere given what we could see in the forest, we often suddenly emerged onto a road or by a field with houses visible in the distance. In the forest there were frequent gnarly climbs that slowed us down, but also long stretches of quite walkable trail in the pretty pine-needle-carpeted conifer forest. There was also a lot of muddy sections which could not be bypassed.
At one road crossing, someone had left out water, energy bars and two freeze-dried meals. We didn't need any extra meals, but they were more appetising than the noodles Julie had been able to find at the organic grocery this morning so we took them and left our noodles! We are becoming quite mercenary when it comes to Trail Magic.
After three fairly long and arduous days, we decided, while having our late lunch break, to set more modest daily goals for the remainder of the trip so we don't feel so pressured. It has been harder to crank out the 20-mile days in the last week or two - maybe because the trail has been more difficult or maybe because Dave is becoming bone-weary and hiking more slowly. Anyway, with likely less than seven weeks to go and well inside our rough schedule, we can afford to take a few extra days.
With that philosophy in mind, we camped near a shelter around 6:30pm, just as a rain shower finished, comfortable with our meagre 13.4 mile day.
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