Day 112 - Upper Goose Pond to Pittsfield Road

Lots and lots of hikers ended up staying at Upper Goose Pond. Twenty-two in all, I think -- including day hikers and southbounders. Dave and I found and cooked some hiker box spaghetti -- score! Hung out by a fire in back later on.

Slept in the bunk room upstairs. It was really dark -- much darker than out in the woods -- but I did OK. Got up last at 8:15. Pancakes were already in progress. Didn’t feel like canoeing or swimming. Packed up and hit the trail a little after noon.

Only a mile and a half to the Mass. Pike footbridge. That was a rush! Not as many beeps and waves as I had expected -- til Smittee dropped his drawers and hung from the chain link fence.

Longshanks, Murph, Stray Cat, and Smittee on the Mass. Pike footbridge

 

Got to the shelter early. Supposed to meet Mom and Dad at the road at 6. But I wanted to see what the trail was like between the shelter and the road and headed off without my pack. No one was there, so I went back to the shelter and rounded up the troops. Got to the road only to find that Mom, Diane, Yolanda, and Aunt Elaine took the fire road instead of the trail, and Dad and another hiker had already started off after them. It was an easy mistake to have made.

Mom and Dad took Dave and me, Murph, Stray, Smittee, and Swagman back to 20 Nancy Avenue. Had a huge tent set up in the backyard, and a big banner proclaiming “Welcome AT Thru-Trekkers". Pretty cute. Mom and Dad had also bought about 20 towels at Macy’s for hikers to use and then take on the trail. A really nice gesture, but I grabbed the ones that hadn’t been used for them to return.

Kind of sad to be in Nanny’s house without her there. All the family photos had been taken down, but everything else was the same. Dad ordered 10 large pizzas. Good to see the Macs, Luke, Shannon, and Casey. Jimmy was there, too. Everyone seemed to think we looked good and that Dave wasn’t too skinny.

Then the Dude, Smiles, and Fiddlehead showed up out of the blue. They were about 40 miles back hitching, and a woman let them borrow her car. Pretty cool. Hung out under the tent til the mosquitoes drove me inside. Trouble sleeping.