July 25 Mile 1529

Left Great Barrington, paying Pravin the motel manager$10 to give us a ride back to the trail. But at 4.5 miles away it was definitely worth it. Back hiking at 8:30 am, which is pretty good after a night in town. Hiked along the Housatonic River, again, and then went up and over East Mountain, never could figure out exactly where the mountain top was. Another low ridge we hike up to here in Mass and Ct, not really distinctive from anything we have seen from Ga to here. Mostly we are hiking through piedmont type forests and it looks alot like Fernbank Forest back home, but with more hills! But every now and then it turns into a hemlock grove and that is wonderful-lots of soft fir needles 

Beaver Pond

on the ground and a great aroma. Saw my first true beaver pond today. A very large pond, more like a lake actually, with a beaver lodge in the middle. And lots of beaver gnawed trees and stumps around. Today the weather was the best we have had since our return to the trail. Sunny, dry, and about 70 most of the day. But the Mosquitos and gnats are just awful. They dog our every step. We cannot even stop to rest. They are in your eyes and ears, biting whenever they can. We stopped for lunch at a very beautiful shelter-  Tom Leonard shelter, set in all of these huge rock ledges and with view of the valley below. The end of the day, with more ups and downs and rocks to climb, we were pushing hard to do 13.5 miles, which is alot for me so soon out. At lunch I drank a "5 hour energy drink" and it really seemed to motivate me. My hiking was much improved. By about 6:30 we were finally getting near the Mt Wilcox North Shelter where we were planning to spend our first night in one of their 3 sided shelters. As it was so hot, I had sucked my Platypus water system  dry and had about 2 cups of water in my water bottle. Same for Cisco. All shelters are built near water sources, but Mass is having a drought this year. We were greeted at the entrance to the shelter with a hand written sign:"no water". The little stream at the shelter dry as dirt. Maybe water at another location 1/2 mile away? We decided to stay put, ate tuna and pita bread and went to bed. Go find water tomorrow. :(