Spring Trail Work Overnights

SPRING TRAIL WORK Although “overnights” require taking more gear, they have a special quality, partly due to evenings and mornings in the mountains as well as relaxed time with other GMCers.  Lorna recalls....

• Learning on an overnight for which I struggled with a heavy pack, how PJ Beaumont strategically reduces the weight of his gear
• Bill Lyons cooking steak and a baked potato on top of Glastenbury, showing us noodle-boilers what gastronomic pleasures were possible atop a mountain
• Huge wild hares sitting outside the Goddard Shelter in the evening, softly silhouetted
• Finding on the ground, only feet from the West Ridge Trail, a nest of bird eggs
• On Sunday morning, after Saturday night at the Goddard shelter, we would hike out down the steep hillside to Shaftsbury and were met by Martha and Hubey who carried cold soda and beer – memorably refreshing after our finishing the overnight's trail work.
• NancyJean and I remember the memorable hike out from one Glastenbury overnight when the whole group of us missed the turn-off to go down the steep hillside to Shaftsbury. The result was that we hiked all the way to the water tower on Harbor Road off Route 9 East and were so tired that, encountering a tree blown down right near the end, we were afraid to crawl under it for fear that with our overnight packs, we would never stand up again.