Adventures on the Appalachian Trail 1.5

Late Monday night, amidst the lightening storm of the century, Ben and I arrived at little Williamstown, Massachusetts. "Just think," he said as rain and thunder enveloped my little truck, "there are people on the trail right now." Lightening struck around the nearby mountains, through which the Appalachian Trail ran. I was feeling better about this already.

Tuesday morning was clear, as we began our preparations. First we set about trying to find a map. The Appalachian Trail Mountain Club of the area recommended a store called the Mountain Goat, in Williamstown, for supplies. We hiked over to check it out. However, like all good camp stores, the infamous Mountain Goat didn't open until 10am - 5 minutes after we had to catch a bus. Consequently, there was no map to be had in Williamstown. We bought one-way bus tickets to Great Barrington, ate a breakfast of egg and bacon bagels, and geared ourselves up for several days in the wilderness. On the way out of the bagel shop, we met a man with a very large and expensive-looking camera on a very cheap and hippy-looking strap. He took one look at us and asked, "Appalachian Trail hikers?"

"Soon to be," I answered. We explained our plan of hiking from Great Barrington to Williamstown.

"It's a good little hike," he said. "Where are you from?"

"Indiana."

"Ah! Flatlanders! It'll be a good challenge."

Ben took quiet insult to that statement while I asked for advice about the trail. "Filter all your water of course," he advised. Of course. We were armed with both filter and iodide tabs.

"And the mosquitoes are relentless. You packed bug repellent, right?" Ben and I exchanged glances. We've worked at camps for years and have long since come to the conclusion that a few mosquito bites were worth not choking on bug spray. They were never that bad. We hadn't brought any bug spray at all.

"Yeah," I answered. "I think we're set on that."

"You'll need 100% deet. Anything else is just a fart in the wind." For those of you unfamiliar with the toxin, 100% deet in bug spray will melt plastic, etch watch material, and generally destroy anything you come in contact with. We soon said goodbye to the gentleman and headed off to the bus.

The bus dropped us off at the visitor's center in Great Barrington, where a wonderful woman let us fill our water bottles out of the office cooler and gave us various generic Appalachian Trail maps. No topographic map, of course, but they're all free, so we're sold. Then it was four grueling miles from Great Barrington to the trail head. I will tell you now that there is no more tedious, more oppressive hiking than on unsheltered pavement on a hot summer day. I'm sweating, I'm burned, and I'm struggling to keep up with a guy who seems to be taking this all in stride - a stride that's much faster than mine. As I trailed behind him on the road, I saw him occasionally glance back and see me far behind. Then he would slow down to match my pace, which doesn't actually allow me to catch up. After a few minutes he would obviously stop thinking about it and naturally speed up again.

By the time we reach the sign pointing the way to Maine and Georgia, I'm soaked through with sweat, sunburned, and thoroughly winded. But we were finally on the Appalachian Trail. Now our real trip could begin.