I was all set and ready to spend three days in the mountains. I had my food. I had my gear. I had my maps. I had even resubscribed to my Garmin inReach plan for satellite communication and rescue in case of emergency. However, as I was finishing some final checks with the inReach before heading out the door, I was met with a rather unpleasant surprise; where it had been working perfectly well that morning, the screen was now totally blank and unresponsive. So rather than depart when I wanted, I got to spend the next few hours wasting time and hoping the inReach would get better instead. The internet suggested I probably needed a replacement and Garmin’s customer service wasn’t open on the weekend, so my efforts were ultimately for naught. Without any backup if things went poorly, it was deemed unwise to venture alone into the frozen mountains, and the trip I’d been looking forward to the last three weeks was called off.
After a few hours of failing to fix the inReach and realizing my plans were doomed, I was not in a particularly good mood. I spent a large chunk of the remaining day moping and being frustrated. Sometime after dark though, I realized I would probably feel a lot better if I did something other than mope. If I couldn’t have the backpacking trip I’d wanted, a short hike would still be much better than nothing. Wanting to tire myself out a little extra, I loaded twenty pounds of rice into my backpack and drove to the south end of Section 3 of the MA NET for an 8 mile night hike.
Finding the trailhead and a parking spot turned out to be a little tricky in the dark, but a few minutes after my arrival, I was moving down the trail. I can’t say much about the trail, since nighttime obscured a lot. I started by climbing over a wooded hill before dropping down and following along the marshy edge of a creek. I chatted on the phone with my brother while I walked, glad to be breaking my normal rule of no electronics while hiking. I’ve previously discussed my mixed feelings regarding night hiking, and this was a great way to stay mentally engaged despite the lack of visual stimulus. We discussed our thoughts about various books and TV shows, and kept at it until he had other things to do just before I reached the northern end of the hike.
A combination of darkness and abundant leaf litter blanketing the trail made parts of it difficult to follow, but eventually it rose away from the creek towards Interstate 90. I paralleled the highway for about half a mile before crossing under and arriving at the end of Section 3 and the half-way point of my hike.
I followed the same route on the return journey, so to keep things interesting tried to keep up a 3 mph pace the whole way back. The monotony of the dark was definitely getting to me a little, where without dramatically changing visuals, hiking begins to feel not dissimilar to walking on a treadmill. Despite that, I did notice a few interesting things without conversation to distract me. Part of the trail back overlapped with some sort of cross country running trail that had its own blazes. There were a couple of big open pits with warning signs just off trail that might once have been quarries. I rediscovered an abandoned pair of shoes I’d seen on my trek north and promptly forgotten about.
I covered the four miles back to the car in just under 1.5 hours, coming very close to achieving my speed goal. I’d also succeeded in improving my mood after my disappointing afternoon. There’s not much that gets me out of a mopey mood better than some outdoor physical exertion. But it was time to get home. I’d be alright waiting a little while longer for my frigid backpacking trip to the White Mountains.
Hike Details:
- Date: November 20, 2021
- Distance: 8 miles
- Route: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/massachusetts/ma-net-section-3
Pokin' Along 