This weekend, Jay and I joined my Mom and her friend (aka hiking partner) Carol on a 40 mile backpacking trip through the Berkshires. Now these ladies are no longer the novices they were two years ago. Since then they have gone on several backpacking trips including a 2 week trip to Maine to hike the Appalachian Trail’s 100 Mile Wilderness.
Our hike this past weekend completed their hike through Massachusetts. In fact, now they have hiked the Appalachian Trail from Southern Virginia all the way through Massachusetts. If you ever hike the AT, look in the trail books for Turnip and Dr. J.
Meanwhile, this trip was Jay’s first Backpacking trip as an adult. He went with the boy scouts as a kid, but those trips were nothing like this trip.
First of all we drank water from the stream, which was delicious!! Turnip and Dr. J used the SteriPEN in Maine and loved it, so Jay and I got one for the trip. Good thing we had one too, because their PEN ran out of batteries the first night. Oops!
The best part of the trail is the cool things you see. The first day, we walked through a cow pasture. Jay loved the cows. To steep mountains and rock faces (at least those have a view).
We also get to see some really cool small towns including Sheffield and South Egremont, Massachusetts. We stayed at the Weathervane Inn (and left our car there while we hiked) and had lunch after our hike at Mom’s Country Café. We crossed through Sheffield half way through our hike and stopped at Great Finds Antiques for water. We couldn’t find a good water source, so we decided a 0.1 mile detour was in order. Apparently we were obviously hikers because we got excited by water and mini Snickers bars.
Regardless, Lisa at Great Finds Antiques was great! We also met Officer Mike and another local who helped guide us at the end of our hike. We had trouble finding the trail that took us from the AT to the road.
All in all, we had a great weekend. Now to plan our next trip!
