Friday, September 22, 2006

On the AT - Upper Goose Pond Cabin to Pittsfield Rd., MA


September 22, 2006 | Miles: 11.0
Start: Upper Goose Pond Cabin
End: Pittsfield Road, The Cookie Lady’s House
Danielle:
Beautiful and fall-like
After a wonderful breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes (thanks Jack! What a treat!), we headed back to the trail around 9am. This morning didn’t quite feel as cold as yesterday, although it could have been due to waking up after our nice, cozy (if noisy—Jack snores!) sleep in the Upper Goose Pond Cabin’s bunkroom…and we again had bright, clear blue skies. Today’s trail conditions could be summarized as wet and muddy sections interspersed with roots and rocks, but it really was a pleasant day in the woods. This section of Massachusetts has been quite nice. We crossed the bridge over the Mass Pike and wandered up and along a ridgeline, once again being treated to a few beaver ponds on the way.

Although we were pretty tired from yesterday’s hike, we made good time for our 11 miles today, making it to Pittsfield Road by 2:30pm. We wandered down the road to “The Cookie Lady’s” house. The couple who owns the house, which also has a blueberry farm, have been feeding hikers cookies for years, and let them get water from their spigot, relax at their picnic table, and sometimes do shuttles. We were treated to some wonderful cookies (Yum!) and “The Cookie Man” nicely offered to take us back to our car in Tyringham. After relaxing a bit, enjoying a few handfuls of wonderful high bush blueberries, we had a nice ride back to the car… This was a great 3-day/2-night trip, even though I had anticipated that it was only going to be 2-days/1-night! It was fun to be hiking, great that Ryan didn’t have any pain, nice to chat with the thru- and section-hikers we met, and even good to be smelly again :-) Now we’re scheming how we can get more miles in this season before the snow flies!

The flora and fauna highlight for today was that we saw a porcupine! It was in the woods a few yards from the trail, and didn’t seem too interested in the smelly hikers taking its photo. It’s the first porcupine we’ve seen on the trail. Pretty neat.

Ryan:
perfect
After a not too late night at Goose Pond cabin followed by the extremely loud snoring of the caretaker, Traveling Jack, we hit the road at 9:00 am. Unfortunately, the cabin is .5 from the AT, so we had some walking even before we were officially on the trail. It was cool again, actually it was a perfect, crisp, clear fall autumn morning.

Massachusetts is pretty mellow. A couple ups and downs but nothing big. Lots of little beaver ponds. But, we’re fairly certain that we would find it less pleasant if we were thruhiking still, since we would be in Massachusetts in early August…lots of mosquitoes.
So, I was definitely tired today, but no pain again. Knees and back both felt great. I’ve got a small thing in my shoulder, same thing that bothered me last year, but it’s my top priority for my massage therapist. (Yup, I’m that bourgeois.) I can work it out pretty well, though.

It was three full days back on the trail, and they were awesome. Couldn’t have been better. So, I just have to keep up with my exercises, and we should be out hiking every weekend. I can’t wait.

Oh yeah, we saw a porcupine today. Funny looking critter.

Today’s song: “C is for Cookie,” Cookie Monster – we ended our hike at the Cookie Lady’s house. She has been handing out cookies to thruhikers for 20 years. Her and her husband have a blueberry farm with very tasty high bush blueberries. Nice people. He even gave us a lift back to our car in Tyringham – 18 trail miles south. Yup, we walked a lot more than planned.

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