#187 Father John’s Campground to Stealth Camp - Trail Day 112: MM1580.8 - MM1600.0
Chase the little white blaze through the wilderness maze
May 8, 2023
The sounds of an awakening small town awakens me. A large truck moving around, possibly a garbage truck, beeps and bangs as it goes about its morning work. Cars buzz around in the nearby neighborhood
A little moisture from last night’s sprinkle dampened my tent fly, so I hang it on the camp’s clothesline to dry. The sun is peeking over the eastern mountains. Blue sky lies in all directions. It’s going to be another good day for a hike.
Along with instant coffee and oatmeal, Push and I split the leftover donuts from last night’s off-trail trail magic and forgo our plan to bike to the donut store.
We hike through town together, passing the donut store just before heading into the trees, knowing we’d never leave town today if we dropped in for some sweet treats - we keep moving.
We have a five-mile hike to the peak of Mt. Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts (3500ft), about twenty-five-hundred feet higher than we are now.
Shortly into the long climb out of Cheshire, we stop below some power lines to shed our down jackets. The breeze is still cool, but the sun is warming up fast in the open fields.
Push, being much taller, much younger, and more fine-tuned to the wilderness from being out here for several months, is a much faster hiker than me. I tell him I’m going to take my time going up.
We make a plan to meet at the sixteen-hundred mile-marker, just past the MA/VT state line, to camp on a small unnamed flat spot by a small stream.
Just keep moving.
Just keep moving.
Chase the little white blaze through the wilderness maze.
Up the second steep accent, I’m surrounded by the usual elements of higher elevation - the ground becomes rockier and the trees grow smaller due to erosion of topsoil over the centuries. The stiff breeze blows harder and ever colder with the rise in elevation.
It feels good to be back in higher altitudes. This is the first time the trail breaks the three-thousand-foot threshold since Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park during my 2022 hike, more than six-hundred trail miles south.