Day 91 Gardening for Dinner

Today Spencer and I hiked 21 miles, swam in a pond, and did some gardening to earn dinner.


I slept very well last night and woke up around 6:30. Last night a thru hiker got into our campsite. His trail name is Pappi and we’ve seen him multiple times since Virginia. 


Spencer and I got our things together and we started hiking around 7:40. The morning had multiple sections of fields in between the mountains.





At one of the fields we saw a large porcupine. It was walking right toward us. Once it saw us it slowly lumbered up a tree. 



We stopped and grabbed a cold drink from road crossing where someone had set up a refrigerator with Gatorade and soda for hikers. We then walked through another beautiful field. 



It was 90 degrees so when we walked by a pond we stopped for a swim and to eat lunch. 



After lunch we crossed over the Mass Turnpike. I have driven I90 under this spot so many times on my way out to Illinois for school, New York for deer hunting as well as Montana and Wyoming for fishing. Every time I’ve thought about the trail and the hikers who might have made it that far. I’ve thought about how one day I would like to hike the whole thing and by the time I would make it that far it would almost be over. And now after over 1,500 miles we have only 640 left to go. It’s funny that the bridge over the mass pike is the spot along the AT that I have visited most often in my life. But usually I’m under it in a car going 80 miles an hour. And this time I walked over it at 3 miles an hour as a part of a thru hike. 




The last 9.5 miles of the day passed quickly. We hiked up to a ridge and walked through thick softwood forests that felt very emblematic of New England. 



The cookie lady is a well known trail angel who gives hikers free cookies and lets them camp in her yard. We showed up around 4:30 after hiking 21 miles. She offered that if we weed some blueberry bushes she would make us dinner. We accepted obviously. First they gave us some chocolate chip cookies and home made lemonade. Then we pitched our tents and rested for a bit. The weeding only took about 45 minutes and we enjoyed a dinner of potato salad, burgers, and blueberry pie. It was all fantastic. We pitched our tents in the front yard under some large trees. 



Tyler started hiking again today but is struggling with the heat and recovering from his sickness. 


Tomorrow is supposed to be less hot but have some afternoon thunderstorms. 


Goodnight,

Walker





If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well:


Tyler: https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1


Spencer: https://www.instagram.com/baxter.bound?utm_source=qr&igsh=MWx4MzRqa3M4dGk3Mw==

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