north wilcox mountain shelter to october mountain shelter

i didn’t sleep particularly well. my legs were extraordinarily twitchy all night. i assumed it was due to dehydration, so i drank some water.

i packed up and had breakfast. it was oatmeal because the great barrington co-op didn’t have breakfast essentials (which they shouldn’t, it’s not food). oatmeal doesn’t really cut it these days.

i was on trail a little before 07:00. the day was mostly quiet moving through forest, though there were a number of streams, ponds, and lakes.

i crossed tyringham cobble and noticed a graveyard in the valley below that made the scene look like a playset.

today was hard mentally and physically. i felt tired and had to mentally push myself just to maintain a normal pace. i only saw two other hikers the whole day.

i tried to listen to an audio book i thought i had downloaded, but realized it was the print version. odd, since my libby app is set to only show me audio books.

i passed a couple places i recognized today as well. the first was after a brief boardwalk and it was where magz had picked me up back when i tried to hike mass with cliffwalker and stakes and had my ass handed to me by mother nature via a night long torrential downpour that put my aging bivvy sack out of it’s misery. nothing had been spared. in the morning everything was completely soaked, including my sleeping bag. i had spent most of the night standing against a tree with my sleeping pad over my head trying to keep from getting wetter. when i packed my bag in the morning it weighed so much that i called it quits and called magz for a bail out.

the other place was a section of trail i hiked with jim, annette, b-sydz, and magz for my birthday. i had really wanted to hike the section of trail that crossed the mass pike. hackett and brent showed up too! i have a great photo of annette with a red headlamp handing me a cupcake with a candle in it. i think the shelter we stopped at was october mountain, where i am tonight, except i don’t recognize the shelter or the surrounding environment at all.

despite struggling all day, i got to the shelter around 16:30. i set up my tent and took a nap. i had dinner a while later and chatted with some other hikers, some just out for a day, some thru, and a guy and his son that started their thru only a few days ago. they’re hiking north to khatadin, and then coming back here and heading south to springer.

some additional images from today: