Chef's Page

Today I went out to The AT for a overnight ridgerunner thing. I parked my car at rte 20 in Lee MA, and started a 7.2 mile hike toward October Mountain shelter. In the parking lot I met a young couple who were going to lead a day hike in the opposite direction up to goose pond. The gentleman thruhiked last year under the trail name Bobcat,how many of those has there been. After chatting for a few minutes we went our separate ways. My first stop was top of becket mountain, were the blackflies were out in force. I use 98% deet, so they do not bite me, but the swarms can be awful. When the wind kicked up they would disappear in a hurry. As a ridgerunner I am responsible for counting hikers and classifying them as Thru hiker, section hiker or day hiker. Bobcat and his group would be dayhikers. Another responsiblity is to report the state of the trail, how many blowdowns, drainage problems, illegal use of trail by motorised vehicles and even things like portable meth labs or pot farms. fortunately the latter two are not a problem in Massachusetts, as a rule. From becket Mt, the AT continues north for five miles thru October Mt.State forest. This section was in rough shape, no blowdowns had been removed and just south of County Rd the beaver pond had moved over the trail, flooding about 50 feet of the trail. The bog bridges were floating and some of the trail is under two feet of water.
From county road it is an easy 1.8 miles to October MT shelter, this area is my responsibility as a maintainer and I am happy to report that my drainage work from a few weeks ago was flowing fine. I made it to shelter about three oclock to find five guys set up, with a nice fire going and cold BEER, awesome. Around five oclock I set up my tent and discovered that I did not have my food bag. UGH, $%$$#&&*%$, I took it rather well, the gents offered to give me some food, but I would not have any for tomorrow and the 7 mile hike back to car. So, I took my pack, water, headlamp and headed south, passing two Thru hikers on the way. made it to car at 7:45 PM, and almost fainted i hiked seven miles in 2 hours 45 mins, basically nonstop, I made it quick run into McDs, cvayse i was starving, then drove thru Forest roads to a spot only half mile from shelter. The guys had been joined by more friends and we sat around fire drinking beers till 11 oclock.
In the morning they continued south for ten miles, they were out fro a weekend section hike, I took all the empties back to car and decided to join a work crew in Pittsfield, that was felling 100 foot hemlocks. these are going to be milled next week to become all aof the big beams for next years new shelter project. Joining me were Richard "the meat cutter", Cosmo, current AT comittee chair for Brkshire chapter and Pete Rentz, longtime volunteer and owner of the wood lot. I must say for a city boy it is wicked awesome to see a 100 foot hemlock come crashing down. We cut down four while I was there, then it was time for a three hour ride home.
Had a great two day weekeend