14th July
23.1 miles
Laurel Ridge Campground (1507.9) to Bushcamp (1531)
It rained all night, actually it poured with rain all night. During the morning the low cloud was condensing on the leaves and dripping like rain on the tent. I was in no hurry to leave except I had almost no battery on my phone. It stored my maps, GPS, town guides, blogposts and more. I needed to find a town to buy a new charge cable and see if that would fix the problem.
I was 10am when I finally packed up the soaking wet tent and put it in my wet pack. My food bag was lighter from the two coffees and two breakfasts I ate while waiting out the rain. I even managed to snooze between breakfasts. My body is tired.
The trail was awfully slippery when I set off. The climb up Mount Everett was not the easiest in slippery conditions. I spent so much time concentrating I forgot to document the climb and descend with photos or video. I caught up to another hiker who was having a bad day. His name is Thumper. I first met him in Tennessee on 5th May and didn’t see him again until a couple of days ago. That’s over 1200 miles of trail until we met again.
We hiked together and chatted for a while. I told him of my problem with the phone and need to make an urgent detour to Great Barrington to seek out a charge cable. He decided to join me, he needed to top up his resupply anyway.
We hiked 4 miles from the trail into the town of Great Barrington on a busy highway. One car stopped with a young lady driving the car and offered us a lift.
We refused the lift as we planned to hike into town on one road and back to the trail on another road. It’s called Yellow Blazing. Following the yellow markings on the road. For some purist hikers it’s forbidden. For Thumper and I it was ok, we were still not breaking our unbroken line of footsteps from the start of the trail. And we would only save about a quarter of a mile in distance.
We stopped at Guidos to resupply, an upmarket grocery store. Nicely dressed people were entering and exiting the grocery store. I only needed a breakfast meal and some snacks. Despite being a large grocery store it was difficult to resupply. Everything was organic. Thumper was forced to buy gluten free, Vegan organic noodles and organic sandwiches, which were expensive. My organic fruit and organic pretzels were not so bad.
I found a new charge cable for my phone. It worked and I could charge my phone again. If it failed and I needed a new phone I would not be able to continue hiking until I had a new phone. Modern technology is great when it works.
With out resupply compete we demolished a Subway sandwich and headed back to the trail, more than 4 miles away. Tired and hungry we set up camp hoping for no rain.
Next : Day 91 – Focusing on Fungus
All the best information on the Appalachian Trail:
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I was in Great Barrington almost a year ago exactly. And the climb to the top of Mt. Everett was indeed slippery. Were the wooden stairs towards the top completed yet? They were working on them last year.
A trail crew was there working in the rain, looks like it will be a while till they are finished
It’s interesting how you literally jumped from on type of economical environment to another, speaking of wealth, as you went north. It seems to be an another country entirely… Cheers :-)
Yes, small town USA in the south is very different from the New England area.
Thank goodness the phone cable did the trick. Hope you can stay dry.
I don’t want to buy a new phone just yet.