129-Back to Mosquito Land...uh...I Mean the Trail

July 25-11.7 miles-Great Barrington to Wilcox South Shelters-AT mile 1535.5

We actually planned to go to the Wilcox North Shelter, but decided we didn’t want to carry extra water for 1.8 miles up and over Mt. Wilcox. But, more on that in a moment. 

Roger and Sandy took us back to the trail at 7:30 this morning. We took photos, and said our “see you laters”, then started walking. 

Photo courtesy of Sure Foot. 

The first bit seemed to just wind around corn fields and along the river. 



Oh yeah, it was foggy. 

We went out to a road, and across a bridge, just to get to the other side of the river, then seemingly made a u-turn, and went back along the river. All of that was flat. 

We finally got back to trail-looking trail, and started the first of a few climbs. 



Sure Foot asked if it was Fall already. 

This was a crevasse that they were nice enough to build a bridge over. 

We reached the first viewpoint of the day, and took a break. 

When we got to the ledge. 

Sure Foot relaxed. 

Same photo as above, only about 5 minutes later. Clouds all gone!

There was an interesting feature called Ice Gulch. 

It was formed when a glacier went through. Some years there is still ice at the bottom in the summer. Not this year. Fortunately, we didn’t have to descend into it, just walked along the top. 

Water has continued to be an issue, even though it rained day before yesterday. At one of the road crossings, someone had cached 8 gallon jugs of water. From there, we had little water until the Wilcox South Shelters (there are two). When we got to the trail to the shelter, we thought we should get water. As I said earlier, we had planned to go to the Wilcox North Shelter (which is 1.8 miles away, on the other side of the mountain). It was iffy whether the North Shelter had water. First we thought we would fill up here at the South Shelters, then carry the extra water to the North Shelter. But, we decided we could add the 1.8 to tomorrow, and not have to carry extra water over the mountain. Even the water here was time consuming to scoop out. 

Wilcox South Shelters tenting area. 

Now it is time for dinner. The mosquitos have been trying to eat me all day! I’m looking forward to retreating to my tent/bug free zone. 









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