Monday, July 11th

Livardi’s (1573.2 mi) to Williamstown, MA (1596.7 mi)

Hiking Miles: 23.5

Total Ascent: 4,991.5 ft

Total Descent: 5,507.5 ft

Total Grade: 446.3 ft/mi

Steps: 58,629

TOTO – Africa

Gator/Sunrise: The day started off perfectly as we grabbed a breakfast sandwich and a coffee at Cumby’s and began our hike with a leisure stroll through a Dalton neighborhood. It reminded me of morning walks in Hollis. Tom Livardi graciously offered to drive our packs to the Williamstown Motel, allowing us to slack pack for the day which afforded us a reasonable climb up Mount Greylock.

Before reaching Mount Greylock, Tom highly recommended we stop for lunch in Cheshire at a small snack bar known for its good food. We arrived there just before 11 am, and it wasn’t open yet. We decided what we were having (the menu was posted on the side of the building where orders were also taken) and then sat and rested at the picnic table, waiting for the cook to arrive. It was an absolutely beautiful day.

An elderly lady arrived precisely at 11 am and took little time to open the side door to take our order. She appeared to move slowly and methodically, and it was clear she was the shack’s order taker, cook and cleaner for the day. She evidently also dabbled in stand-up comedy and practiced while she was recording our lunch order. I have to admit, she did make us chuckle. I ordered (SLOWLY while she wrote on a small notepad) a tuna melt, a bag of Ranch Doritos and a chocolate shake. In an effort to conserve time, Croc told her “I will make it easy for you by having the “EXACT” same thing”. Now here comes the funny part – she glared directly at him and let out a deep sigh. She then replied “You are making this hard for me!” and proceeded to write down everything again starting with the Tuna Melt…. which btw took another 5 minutes. If anything, this provided me time to decide I wanted an additional Diet Pepsi. When I asked her to add it to my order, she replied “You are killing me!” By the time she was done jotting everything down, there was a line of hikers behind us ready to order. “Good Luck” I told them.

We hiked to the top of Mount Greylock by 2 pm, at times we were running swiftly even up hill. One elderly couple told me to slow down during a steep incline, and I told them that I had to keep up with my son who set the aggressive pace. The views were stunning, and we stayed there a while. We had some lunch and cool water from a tap on the side of the Bascom Lodge.

We later stopped at a grocery store in town and bought a number of resupply items as well as an assorted fruit bowl for the evening. It took us a while to get through the self-checkout line because I apparently wasn’t providing the scanning machine enough time to weigh our items. It was a new machine and the attendant had to reset it at least 5 times before we were finished. I was clearly frustrated, and I “may” have rudely told the attendant they needed to find a new machine.

When we arrived at Williamstown Motel, we were warmly greeted by Rocky, the owner. He was very gracious; he gave us bottles of water, and even offered to drive us back to the trail head in the morning. He likewise gave us suggestions for dinner delivery options and we decided on Chinese food. So while we watched Expendables 3 on TV that evening, we ate Chinese food, our fruit tray from the supermarket, and cold Cokes.

Croc: Today essentially capped off our last day in Massachusetts (we still had a few miles before we hit Vermont, but it was practically done) and it truly lived up to its expectations as my most memorable state on the trail. Yet, I don’t think you’ll find very many hikers who would agree with me. I just think it captured it all with trail magic, a slack-pack, not too strenuous hikes, camping on lawns and sleeping in cabins, and then probably the Cumberland Farms that was right on the trail.

However, this morning I woke up soaked because I decided not to put my tent cover on. I was trying to stargaze the night before, but the lack of tent protection allowed the morning dew to drip right in. It was all right, though, because I had coffee and donuts waiting for me at the picnic table and a slack-pack to look forward to (thanks, Tom!).

Gator and I started the day together with our Cumberland Farms coffees as we strolled along the town of Dalton for a nice and easy road walk. Like Gator said, it did remind me of when we had some “practice hikes” on the Hollis roads a year ago with our coffees in hand. Little did we know that the AT would end up being vastly different from those short 1-3 mile walks around Hollis. Thinking back, a lot of “training” ended up being vastly different from our reality on the AT. We also had a planned 3-day trip to Baxter State Park the summer prior to hike Katahdin, which resulted in us using a giant 3-person leaking tent, failing to hang our food bag properly in a tree, stuffing our bags with random items to simulate weight, only getting halfway up the mountain, and then leaving a day early because we were miserable. And after all that, we thought we were ready for a 120-day trip where we had to hike 20 miles a day.

Anyways, we eventually arrived at a little food shack that Tom recommended and waited for the owner to come so we could order some sandwiches, shakes, and drinks to fuel us up for the day. I won’t repeat Gator’s story from above, but I also recall her making the joke, “Oh, now I have to go back to the store to get milk!” after we asked for the milkshakes. However, my memory isn’t that great, and that joke easily could have been Gator’s joke impersonating the lady while we were hiking later in the day. I just thought it was hilarious because the shack was primarily an ice cream and shake shop, and to not have milk would be like McDonald’s not having burgers. While we waited for our food, Tom actually stopped by and chatted with us and confirmed our bags made it to the motel. I didn’t realize this at first, but he had to drive nearly 45 minutes there and then 45 minutes back just to drop off our bags. Sometimes I forgot that a short hike can actually be a long drive with a giant mountain in the way.

I didn’t think my day could get any better after having a morning coffee, a hot lunch, and a slack-pack, but then we were standing at the base of Mt. Greylock. I hadn’t been excited about a mountain probably since Clingman’s Dome (NC) or Mt. Rogers (VA), which is technically not even on the trail. It started to bring back memories of my freshman year at UMass, Amherst, when my new, crazy college friend and I decided to blow off some steam and hike Mt. Greylock on a whim. Of course, we didn’t plan anything and drove over midday, resulting in us hiking back down in the pitch black without food and water, but it was still a memory that I’ll never forget. Little did I know that I’d be hiking this mountain and MANY more almost 10 years later.

We had a late lunch at the top of the mountain outside of Bascom Lodge, and we were bummed to find out it was closed for the rest of the day. The lodge typically has a cafeteria for hikers to grab food. What I didn’t know was that the lodge also hosts weddings if you rent out the space. It would have been a great place for my wedding coming up…

We finished up our day with a fairly quick hike down Mt. Greylock into the town of Williamstown, MA, where I had oddly been before. It was the last stop of the East Coast/AT road trip that I did with my buddies Logan and Sean. We hit some familiar places along the trail like Clingman’s Dome, Mt. Rogers, Grayson Highlands (remember the ponies?), Shenandoah National Park, and even High Point in NJ.

We then had to hike over a mile from the AT to the motel, with our full resupply, because I swore the FarOut app said “no shuttles.” But when we arrived, the motel owner, Rocky, said that he would have kindly shuttled us and even gave us a ride the next morning. Regardless, it allowed us to stop by that annoying grocery store (see story above). Fun fact: Rocky mentioned that Karel Sabbe stayed at his motel a few years back when he attempted and completed the fastest known time (FKT) on the AT (41d 7h 39m). He also has the FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail and many other trails.

We then finished our MA journey the best way possible with a shower, movie, and an overabundance of Chinese food. I think this was one of the first times I actually stayed up for a movie on the trail besides the Warwick Drive-In.