09/10 - 09/15 Bennington, VT to Lee, MA

Day 62

Friday September 10th

Roaring Branch Beaver Bog

579.2 - 587.7 = 8.5

I get up early like I do every day and Jeff sleeps in forever like he does every time we’re in town. I sit in bed and wait patiently. This is the time in which I get photo uploading and captioning done and blogs posted. It’s a lot of work to keep up and it’s hard to do when I don’t have total peace and quiet.

It’s almost 9 by the time we have our room packed up. We get all of our stuff out and store our backpacks outside of the motel office, so that they can clean the room right away if they want to. We hear Peter and Kae will be the ones moving into our room and they are coming to town at 10. We ask the owner if he’ll shuttle us back when they are coming in, but for some reason he’s rude about coordinating it. We were just trying to save him a trip.

We walk to Love A Bagel for breakfast. It’s a mile and a half round trip from the motel, but we enjoy seeing the sites of downtown as we go. I am pleasantly surprised that they have a peanut butter and green apple bagel sandwich. We each get our own sandwich and an acai bowl for us to share. They have reduced day old muffins, so we get some of those too, a pistachio and a lemon poppy seed. It’s nice not having to watch what we eat, or really even think about it.

I also learned of a restaurant called Papa Pete’s House of the Giant Pancake. They make 14” pancakes that are served on a pizza plate with a pizza cutter! It’s sound like too much fun! It’s on the way back to the trail, but it’s two miles from the hotel, so it’s not worth the effort. It gets added to the list of things we will do when we come back and hike the long trail. Already on the list is camping next to the Glastenbury fire lookout, taking the gondola down Stratton Moutain for resupply, visiting Manchester Center and staying at the Green Mountain hostel, camping in the ski hut on top of Bromley Peak, visiting the Yellow Deli again, having a meal at the summit lodge on Killington and staying at the Inn and Long Trail!

On our way back we see Peter and Kae and talk to them for a few minutes. They will be taking a double zero there, so we probably won’t see them again for awhile. They have been hiking for the last few days with a guy called Hoon. He started the same day as us on Katahdin, but went one campsite further than us on the second day, leaving Baxter State Park. Those few miles of separation were enough to keep us all from meeting him for almost two months!

We get back to the trail around 11. We have a short climb up stone stairs to regain the ridge line and then a bit more gradual climb to Harmon Hill. According to a sign at the trail head, the forest service performs prescribed burns here to maintain the historical viewing that the area has been known for. If not for the control of vegetation, it would be another viewless summit. Instead we have fine views of Bennington.

We re-enter the thick jungle forest and mud bogs with the occasional stream running through the trail. It’s slow going and tiring. We don’t make it as far as we had hoped. We stop early at 5:45, knowing we’d have to hike until dark to make it to the next campsite. We set up our tent near a very old, large and impressive beaver pond and dam. We can tell it must be old by the large trees growing along the dam. It’s nice to be in a clearing with a view of the sky. I cook us miso peanut noodles for dinner and then we hurry to get into the tent, as it’s actually pretty cold tonight! We have a thermometer key chain and it appears to be below 50 around sunset! Before bed we get out of the tent once more to brush our teeth and admire the stars and moon from our rare wide open view. I can’t remember seeing the moon the whole trip!

Our motor inn in Bennington Vermont.

Downtown Bennington.

Main Street. City Hall made of marble on the left and the Avocado Pit, where we are, on the right.

Very nicely stacked stone stairs on the way back up the trail

Harmon Hill summit marker and a trail register in a box. We don’t see many of these right on the trail, but there is a trail register in every shelter. We don’t bother with signing them and don’t often look at them either.

Beautiful view of Bennington from Harmon Hill.

A stream flows through the path of the trail

Walking along a nice big stream for about a quarter mile, a rare treat.

Beaver bog where we camped.

Day 63

Saturday September 11th

Wilbur Clearing Shelter

587.7 - 600.6 = 12.9

Jeff wakes me up at 5:15 because he can hear some animal crashing through the bushes nearby. It never reveals itself to us. We try to snooze, moaning and groaning and rolling around, eventually getting up at 6. It’s a little on the cold side so it takes us longer to get motivated to pack up and cook our breakfast. It takes us until 8 to get walking.

We have several more miles of muck to get through and then it gets better for awhile. It’s only been a few days of this, but it’s such a glorious relief when we can walk normally on dry trail and go fast. We hope it’s doesn’t last too many more days.

I find some chicken of the woods mushroom again. It’s the third time we have seen them and today I pick some. I shred them up at lunch time and we eat them in a brown rice risotto. I use peanut butter, a broth cube, a garlic clove, crushed red pepper and minute brown rice and boil it all in our jet boil stove. It’s a very tasty and luxurious trail meal.

Shortly after lunch we reach the Vermont - Massachusetts border. We have been sharing the last hundred miles with the Long Trail and this is where that trail officially starts, so now we will no longer be seeing Long Trail Hikers. The trail seems to instantly get better. We go into a drier forest and have an easy time making it the final few miles down off the mountain to MA Route 2. We see a few new types of trees and bushes like sassafras, black pine and laurel bushes. For about the last mile and a half we follow Sherman Brook, the water supply for Williamstown. It’s not often that we get to follow a river for such a distance and it’s quite nice.

It is a relief to have some easier trail. The mental concentration required to stay dry in the bogs is exhausting. I was also starting to get blisters on my feet from having constantly wet feet and muck between the sandals beds and straps and my feet. We really wanted to like Vermont, but the mud and enclosed jungle was not the most fun. Now we understand why the only thing NOBOs said about Vermont was that it was muddy. There were certainly some good sections though! It didn’t get muddy until after Killington and we enjoyed going up on all the ski mountains and fire towers.

Once we reach the highway we walk on roads through the bottom of the valley and over the Hoosic River. We are in between the towns of North Adams and Williamstown, so we aren’t near many stores or restaurants, but there is a grocery store only half a mile away! We gladly take the detour on a side walk through neighborhoods to reach Stop and Shop. We don’t need to resupply as we will be in another town again tomorrow, but we do want to stop in for something to eat right now. Stop and Shop is a great store, it’s our favorite of the grocery options near where Jeff’s parents live. I’d love to buy all sorts of things, but I restrain myself and just get some veggies and hummus for wraps and some fruit and yogurt for dessert. We pack out a carrot and some celery sticks to enjoy back on the trail and some bananas and granola for tomorrow. There is a nice picnic table outside for us to enjoy our bounty.

The grocery store detour takes us two hours. We finish our walk through the neighborhood on Phelps Avenue and then we are back in the woods and climbing. Now we are going up Mt Greylock. We won’t reach the top tonight. It is the highest mountain in Massachusetts with an auto road to the top and a lodge and restaurant too.

It takes us a little over an hour to reach the Prospect Ledges. The trail is great and the forest is nice and open, allowing lots of light in. We make it to the view ledge right at sunset and have a nice view of many mountains and the valley where we came from. We can see Williamstown quite well. We stop to eat our carrot and celery as ants on a log. We’d like to camp at the view, but in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey there is a mandate for overnight hikers to only camp in designated camp sites. We continue a further half mile down into a valley to the next shelter. We arrive after dark and are displeased to see tons of tents already set up and lots of noisy people and a barking dog and smelly fire going in the fire pit. We learn we aren’t far from a parking lot and we are on the trail leading up Mt Greylock and it’s a a Saturday so I guess that’s why there’s so many people. We had really hoped that once we got off the Long Trail we’d be seeing a lot less people! We are pleasantly surprised that it quiets down nicely after 9 and we are able to get to bed at a reasonable time.

Sunrise at the beaver pond. Sadly we didn’t see any beavers.

Jeff sitting in the flat spot that is our camping ground next to the beaver dam.

Chicken of the woods mushroom. They usually grow on the logs of downed hardwood. This one was growing on a log that was laying down flat and facing away from the trail. I’m not sure how I saw it.

It shreds up like chicken or jackfruit. The texture really is like chicken.

A very tasty risotto, and pretty too!

Long Trail starting line. We’ll be back here one day!

No exciting sign for our entrance into Massachusetts!

Drier forest with black pines in Massachusetts and lots of the trees up here turning already. This used to be the site of another rock garden but it has been destroyed and you can’t even tell it was once here.

Rocks instead of mud!

Following Sherman Brook. Lots of no camping signs for the entitled thru hikers.

The Hoosic River at the bottom of the valley.

A special pedestrian bridge across the big river just for the AT!

Road walking from Stop and Shop back to the trail. Would have been nice to stay in Williamstown or North Adams, but we can’t stop everywhere or we’ll never make it far!

Some nice houses along the walk. It’s crazy how many houses are right on the trail and how many more there will be as we continue south!

Going back up into the mountains, the Prospect view ledge is on the hill to the right.

Sunset view above Williamstown

Valley view at sunset

Day 64

Sunday September 12th

Father Tom Campsite

600.6 - 612.2 = 11.6

We only have a few more miles to go to reach the top of Mt Greylock in the morning. Now that we no longer have to regularly scale rock walls, the climbs no longer feel like climbs. They all seem relatively easy. We did most of the elevation last night so we move swiftly to the top. Mt Greylock is Massachusetts tallest peak at 3,489 feet. Just before the top we walk up an old downhill ski trail called the Thunderbolt. It was built by the CCC in the 1930s. At the top of the ski run is an old stone shelter, also built by the CCC. We always enjoy visiting the sites of CCC works. They did a quality job that stands the test of time! We stop and sit inside and make a hot matcha and eat a chocolate bar.

The top of the mountain is supposed to be the southern most point in New England where you can find boreal forest. Most of the top is cleared though to make room for roads, parking lots, campgrounds, a lodge and a viewing tower! It’s an amazing view but we can’t help but feel sad for the loss of the boreal forest. The tower doubles as a war memorial and we are pleased to find that it’s open to the public. We take a spiral staircase to the top where we have views in every direction. The Bascom Lodge, nearby, was also built by the CCC. It has a cafe inside and a few rooms for people to stay in. There’s a bunk room that AT hikers can stay in when there is space, but it’s full. The lady at the desk isn’t very nice to us, so we leave without bothering to eat lunch there. We are there around 11, right when the cafe opens up and pretty soon there are a line of auto tourists out the door.

It’s another few hours in the forest to get down to town. We stop at a shelter for lunch and make it down to MA Route 8 by 3 or so. Just down the road from the trail there is a Dollar General and a Shell Gas Station and a Dunkin Donuts. It has been nice the last few days not having to carry too much food. We get more food at Dollar General to supplement our meals and snacks for the trail, then we head to the gas station hoping to find bananas and Clif bars. There are none, just soft old apples and the Clif bars are $2.69 each, so we pass. We are surprised to see that the Dunkin Donuts is inside of the gas station.

We think we’re gonna go crush more miles so we get an XL iced oat milk matcha latte and food. They have avocado toast, so I give it a try. It’s just a thick slice of sourdough toast with an avocado spread on it. It’s pretty tasty though and not too expensive. Jeff gets a junk food breakfast sandwich and a donut!

Back on the trail, we walk though a corn field and then into a neighborhood of the town of Cheshire. We go past the elementary school and post office. There’s a bus stop in the center of town that could take us to a mall, but we keep going. On the way out of town, there is the Father Tom Campsite. It’s only a few years old and was built in memory of Father Tom. He was the local pastor of St Mary’s Church and let hikers sleep in the gymnasium at the church. He was a thru hiker himself, completing the trail in sections. He died A few years ago and the church members couldn’t keep it up. The community came together and built this place and now it’s maintained by volunteers. It’s a nice big grassy lot with picnic tables, a shed with loaner bicycles and power outlets, a porta potty and bear locker. It is maintained by volunteers in the local community. We can’t believe there are bicycles! The bicycles are too enticing for us and we make the immediate decision to stop early tonight!

We wanted to go 4 more miles to the next campsite on Crystal Mountain. I would probably be dark before we would get there anyway. We keep having this problem recently, running out of daylight. Lately we’ve been pretty tired most days too. We can’t seem to get as many miles in as we would like. We’ve been hoping for 15 but only averaging about 12 miles a day.

We get our tent set up quick, throw ours stuff inside and set off on the bikes. There is a nice rail trail right out in front of the campsite called the Ashuwillticook. It’s runs for more than 12 miles along the Cheshire reservoir and beyond. We ride for a few miles along the lake then go to the Bass Water Grill for dinner. It seems to be a popular place for locals, especially since there is football playing on the television. It’s a subpar meal, but nice to sit inside away from the mosquitos. We get ice berg lettuce salads, with a few slices of decorative vegetables on top and really oily dressing, a side of steamed veggies and a really over cooked baked potato. They only had one baked potato so Jeff has fries. It’s dark by the time we ride back to the campsite, but it’s only a 5 minute ride and we do ok with my cell phone light. It’s supposed to be stormy overnight but we have set up our tent on a mound in the grass, so we should be nice and dry!

Thunderbolt ski trail

Nice stone stairs at the top of the ski trail

CCC Warming Hut. Thunderbolt Lodge.

Nice information plaque

And another

War memorial and view tower on top of Mt Graylock. The little post on the right is an AT trail marker.

View back to Thunderbolt Lodge

I took a photo from each window in the tower. Cool clouds and view back toward North Adams.

Bascom Lodge

There was a plaque at each window telling you what you’re looking

Spiral stairs

Boreal forest information

Bascom Lodge

Informational plaque

Auto tourists from the road

Mark Noepel shelter on the way down Greylock. The overhang above the picnic table is a sleeping loft and there are 4 bunk platforms in the lower part. This type of shelter can fit a lot of people.

Fields as we approach the valley and town of Cheshire

Dollar General and Shell gas station available to us right where the AT crosses the road.

Walking into Cheshire

Me with my loaner bicycle at the Father Tom campsite

Rail trail

Cheshire Reservoir

Information about Father Tom and the campsite

Day 65

Monday September 13th

Tom Levardi’s

612.2 - 621.1 = 8.9 miles

It’s about 8:30 before we make it out of town. It’s only a mile to a view above town, the Cheshire Cobbles a marble ledge. From the view we can see the Cheshire Reservoir and Mt Greylock. We walk a few more miles to Crystal Mountain campsite where we’d wanted to make it to last night. We stop there for lunch and are delighted to find that there’s a picnic table! We’re really tired again today and trudge along through the forest after lunch. We make it over the mountain and down to the next road and town by 2.

The trail goes through the town of Dalton, but it doesn’t go to the commercial center. We follow the route of the AT, walking over a mile through a neighborhood in the opposite direction of where the shopping is. We should probably have just taken a direct line to the shopping, but we wanted to stay on the trail. We wait until we reach Main Street to detour off. We go half a mile to Hot Harry’s Burritos and get rice, bean and veggie bowls. From there it’s almost two more miles to reach the shopping area with Walmart and other grocery stores on the edge of the town of Pittsfield. We need to buy stove fuel and it’s been hard to find recently. We know Walmart will have it, so we head there. We also need a bit of food to get us to the next resupply point a day and a half away. We buy Clif bars, larabars, oatmeal, bagels and almond butter.

By the time we finish shopping we are incredibly tired. We thought we’d get an Uber back to the trail but there are none, so we start walking back. Jeff puts his thumb out as we go. I find hitch hiking embarrassing and we’ve heard that this is a hard town to get a hitch in, but we don’t go far before some guy in a truck stops for us. He’s a radical dude that’s a singer in a metal band and must be a tile worker by day, because he has all the fancy saws and equipment in the bed of the truck! In no time we’re back on the trail walking through the neighborhood, what a relief! Just down from where we get dropped off there is a house that lets hikers camp in the yard. Jeff really wanted to get back to the forest tonight, but we are too tired to make it the 3 miles to the next shelter and camping area. I kind of knew all along that this would happen and wish we’d just come here first to drop off our stuff and ride his bicycles on our errands!!

We stop and ring the door bell at Tom Levardi’s house. He’s been hosting hikers for nearly 40 years. He lets us set up our tent in the grass behind his house and he has a picnic table with jugs of water and power outlets on the porch. We make night time tea on our stove and he brings out all sorts of baked goods made by the ladies at the local church. He is so nice to us and we feel so relieved to be resting before it gets dark! There are bicycles we can use and we are supposed to go to the gas station when we need to use the bathroom. We are also told to keep the noise down, not leave trash and not to wander into the neighbors yards. He must have had all sorts of problems with bad hikers over the years.

Before bed we sit on the porch and he tells us some of the stories about bad partying hikers. He tells us about hikers running up bar tabs at the restaurant down the street and sneaking out with out paying and hikers trashing churches and other places that let them stay for free, like here. There were hikers that robbed a gear store nearby for $800 worth of merchandise and tried to sell the gear to other hikers for beer and drug money. There’s been problems with hikers stealing from the gas station. It’s all appalling to hear. This is why we are embarrassed to be associated with thru hikers and also why we want to travel south, instead of with the big pack of partying north-bounders. There is currently a young man here that’s been sleeping on the porch for the last 3 months. He was hiking, did about 600 miles from somewhere in Virginia and ran out of money. He got a job at Wendy’s but was fired today. He wants to take his final paycheck and move to Arizona. It’s amazing to us that Tom lets him keep staying! He’s 20 years old. Last year Tom had an 18 year old stay for a year! Tom has also had injured hikers camp in the yard for extended periods of time while they recover. There are a few dead spots in the grass from the tents that were there too long.

We also learn that Dalton is home to the Crane

Paper Company. The Crane Paper Company makes all of the paper for US dollars. Every dollar we have ever held has come from here. Neat! Tom tells us that one of his brothers spent his career working there and that each task in making the dollars is split up between the workers so that no one person knows the whole process. He also says that only 2 employees at a time know how to make the water mark. This is all necessary to prevent counterfeiting of money.

Panorama from the Cheshire Cobbles

View of Cheshire Reservoir from the marble ledge

View of Mt Greylock (the one on the right with the little cloud cap) and the town of Cheshire from the marble ledge

Some especially large viburnum leaves. They are beginning to lose their color. They have been making up the forest under story recently.

Day 66

Tuesday September 14th

October Mountain Shelter

621.2 - 632.7 = 11.6

We wake up at 6, still feeling dead tired still. Tom makes us coffee and brings it out to the picnic table for us. He also brings out an array of baked goods, corn bread, chocolate muffins and apple loaf bread. We ask him if we can help with raking and mowing and he says yes and seems excited by the idea of getting help. Before we start that, we ride away on the bikes to the Cumberland Farms gas station to use the bathroom and buy some bananas and something to drink. He provides us water but fills the jugs from the hose, and it’s so foul we can’t drink it!

By the time we get back, he’s changed his mind about us helping in the yard. We’re not really sure why. He just keeps saying we don’t have to do that. He’s too nice. We would have been excited to do yard work, but oh well, we’ll get hiking earlier instead.

We have packed up and departed by about 9. We have easy forest walking all day. It barely feels like we are going up and down. At lunch time we have a view ledge to sit on and look back on Greylock in the distance. We cross many paved roads, all leading back to civilization in the Pittsfield area. There is nothing for hikers on these rural roads though, so we keep moving. There is a house at one of the crossings where a trail Angel known as the Cookie Lady lives. During peak hiker season she puts baskets of cookies, hard boiled eggs and other snacks on her porch and hikers can buy/donate money for them on the honor system. That ended on September first though, so no cookies for us. If I lived along the trail I’d be the cookie lady too, or maybe the banana bread lady!

The miles fly by and we get to stop real early at 4:45, after 11.6 miles. We got a late start and finish early. We have ample time to lounge at camp and eat our dinner and still get to bed early. It feels good to have had an easy day, we sure needed one. We found some more chicken of the woods mushrooms today and have a really good dinner of rice and oat mushroom risotto. Those mushrooms are so good! We really hope we keep finding more!

We could have gone further, but for the few hundred miles that we are in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, we are supposed to camp only in official sites. The next official site is more than 8 miles away. We will be getting off the trail and going to a lodge for the evening just before that, so it makes sense to stop here. Now we will have a short day tomorrow and an early check in at our hotel.

Tom Levardi’s house with the picnic tables and bicycles for hikers. We are also allowed to sit on the porch and charge our phones and the camping is in the back.

A nice cobbled path through the forest

Lunch with a view. It’s always nice to get out of the forest and into the sun at least once a day!

Day 67

Wednesday September 15th

Berkshire Lakeside Lodge

632.7 - 639.9 = 7.2

It’s an easy few miles off the mountain to US Route 20, where we’ve made a reservation to stay at the Berkshire Lakeside Lodge. The lodge is just a few tenths of a mile down the road from where the trail crosses the highway. We are there by noon and are delighted to find that the room is ready. They started doing contact less check in because of COVID, so we don’t have to do anything but walk into the room. We paid over the phone and the receipt is in our room. Many hotels give AT hiker a discount. He our room only cost $70 with all the taxes included.

It’s supposed to be stormy tonight and it’s already super humid, so it’s good to be indoors in the air conditioning for the rest of the day. There is no laundry, so we rinse our clothes in the shower and let them air dry. Nothing dried in the forest, but here in our air conditioned room it’s no problem. We stay inside all day. We are right on a little lake and there’s canoes we can use and also a good place to swim, but we don’t. We are able to get food delivered from a pizza place, Vivaldi’s in Lee. They get a salad and they make us a fantastic veggie pizza with breaded eggplant on it!

The rest of the day we are lounging. I sort and repackage our new load of food. My mom sent us a box of hiker food from what we had left at home. I just found out about this hotel about 5 days ago, so she rushed to put together the box and send it out right away. We are very grateful as we didn’t want to try to hitchhike into town and now we get more rest.