october mountain shelter to cheshire, ma

it felt like i got up really late today, but after i packed up, had breakfast, and got on trail it was exactly 07:00.

the day was mostly flat. in fact over the 20 miles i only climbed 2785’, which is extraordinarily low. for the most part it was forested, but there were some nice ponds and streams i crossed.

around lunchtime the trail went through dalton. i stopped at a coffee shop for a coffee and an oreo muffin. the coffee was flavored, which, just no. the oreo muffin was buttered and grilled to perfection.

from there i hiked further into town to hit a burrito place. they had some kind of crispy grilled cheese burrito thing, and it was also very tasty. unfortunately i finished it up with two of the worst churros i’ve ever had.

i finished hiking through town and reentered the forest. it was after lunch, so i put on some podcasts and the afternoon passed pretty quickly. the podcast ‘darknet diaries’ was pretty interesting and i definitely got into it enough that i was pretty disconnected from my surroundings. i only note it here because while i don’t mind doing being disconnected occasionally, i’m not interested in having it become a regular thing.

i arrived in cheshire around 16:00 and found a really nice little spot the town had set up. it was a grassy area maybe a half acre in size with picnic tables, a shed with bikes, a trash can, a porta potty, and a bank of electrical outlets.

i set up my tent and went back to the main street to get an ice cream, then came nack and chatted with an older brother / sister duo that was doing a section hike. 3 separate times folks from the town showed up to say hi and see if we needed anything, one brought a basket of snacks!

i had some dinner and went to the shed to unplug my battery and got stung by a wasp. i didn’t even know it was there till it stung me. lame. i have a history that includes a full body allergic reaction as well as many many (too many) years of allergy shots that ultimately didn’t work, so a little concerning. i retired to my tent to relax and wait it out. i’ve found that if i can go and essentially meditate, i can get by with a mild reaction. one of the hikers gave me a benadryl in case i needed it. thankfully it worked and nothing came of it.

tomorrow is a short but tough 14 miles up and over greylock, and then a steep descent down mt. williams to rt 2 where i’ll be getting off trail for about a week!

some images from today: