Subject: egmosh is ours<br/>
Date: Apr 18, 2005 @ 23:30<br/>
Author: aletheia kallos (aletheia kallos &lt;aletheiak@yahoo.com&gt;)<br/>
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<div id="ygrps-yiv-1169174421">a stunning success<br/>
class a <br/>
on the heels of messages 17410 17409 17364<br/>
<br/>
play by play summary follows<br/>
<br/>
returned to berkshire school this morning & proceeded<br/>
directly up the true elbow trail so effectively that i<br/>
didnt even notice when it met the appalachian trail <br/>
& so kept bearing leftish or south at that point<br/>
tho i should have turned hard right or north for the<br/>
tripoint<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4664518&e=629665&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25">http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4664518&e=629665&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25</a><br/>
& only after half a mile of walking in the wrong<br/>
direction on the appalachian trail did i realize the<br/>
elbow trail blazes had changed <br/>
& that it could well mean i had made a mistake<br/>
<br/>
so i walked back a quarter of a mile <br/>
before persuading myself that it might not have been a<br/>
mistake either <br/>
hahaha<br/>
but only another in the long series of switchbacks &<br/>
inconsistent markings & changes in character<br/>
<br/>
so i turned about again<br/>
& walked forward an additional half mile before<br/>
turning about again<br/>
while beginning to wonder if egmosh really was the<br/>
right name after all<br/>
seeing as her elusiveness & contrariness hadnt really<br/>
seemed to diminish at all since the second name change<br/>
<br/>
but when i finally did find my way back to the blown<br/>
junction <br/>
i realized that my going the extra mile for this<br/>
lovely <br/>
& even going it twice <br/>
as i estimate i actually did in all these turnabouts  <br/>
was completely in character with both her & me<br/>
& thus i felt right on course in more ways than one as<br/>
i finally did catch the right trail in the right<br/>
direction <br/>
now already within only half a mile of the objective<br/>
<br/>
so<br/>
great excitement<br/>
but i also had to keep a lid on it since the next<br/>
maneuver in my plan was likely to be the most delicate<br/>
one of all <br/>
namely <br/>
to find the egmo town line so i could follow it to the<br/>
target<br/>
<br/>
for i thought i knew from the topo that egmo is<br/>
coincident with the state forest boundary where they<br/>
cross the appalachian trail<br/>
& i had found this forest boundary to be very clearly<br/>
blazed elsewhere on previous probes<br/>
so i thought i knew exactly what markings i was<br/>
looking for here & expected imminent success behind<br/>
every tree<br/>
since the distance from the brook to the boundary is<br/>
shown on the topo to be only a couple hundred feet<br/>
<br/>
but in the event there was no sign of the expected<br/>
markings for many hundreds of feet as i continued<br/>
north of the trail<br/>
causing me to again doubt my map & wits<br/>
until i reached the small knoll at the red cross in<br/>
the center of the above map<br/>
<br/>
& of course even that locational identification<br/>
like everything else<br/>
had to remain tentative<br/>
since there was still precious little topological<br/>
corroboration & no actual confirmation of anything yet<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
but it was my best hypothesis at that point<br/>
since my plan had proved to be nothing but a<br/>
misapprehension<br/>
<br/>
so <br/>
from the topo i estimated the distance at 200 yards or<br/>
paces<br/>
& the bearing at sse<br/>
& headed off through fairly daunting thickets of<br/>
mountain laurel<br/>
on a dead reckoned beeline bushwhack try<br/>
<br/>
but of course i had to pick my way by inches rather<br/>
than feet or yards<br/>
& was stuck & nearly stopped cold several times before<br/>
finally catching sight of the tripoint monument in a<br/>
clearing<br/>
only a few degrees off course & a few paces short of<br/>
my expectation<br/>
in as gratifying a culmination as i can ever recall on<br/>
any try<br/>
notwithstanding the rather pedestrian appearance of<br/>
the marker<br/>
which the attached pic shows<br/>
along with what could well be the surviving<br/>
predecessor cairn<br/>
1779egmosh1914 <br/>
i think <br/>
just a few feet off in the background<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
most if not all berkshire town lines were remonumented<br/>
in 1914<br/>
& markers of this type & vintage are fairly common<br/>
thruout the county <br/>
which<br/>
along with the extremely pleasant conditions <br/>
makes collecting town tripoints in this area a very<br/>
attractive idea<br/>
<br/>
so attractive to me in fact that i would actually like<br/>
to eat them all<br/>
<br/>
but i just didnt want to announce this til i had<br/>
actually bagged one<br/>
<br/>
& as it turns out<br/>
now that i have finally tried to scope out the entire<br/>
county <br/>
indeed just today as i am also trying to scope japan<br/>
out<br/>
i find by sheer coincidence that berkshire appears to<br/>
have the same number of internal town tripoints as<br/>
japan has prefectural ones<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.berkshireweb.com/themap/index.html">http://www.berkshireweb.com/themap/index.html</a><br/>
tho i still havent fully confirmed the punctoscopy<br/>
here either<br/>
<br/>
so i could still be wrong about either or both of them<br/>
having 44 in all<br/>
but today at least they are sure looking like<br/>
identical twins & sister neighborhoods of a sort<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
next try will be eggrsh<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4668762.00011747&e=633103.000004677&datum=nad83">http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4668762.00011747&e=633103.000004677&datum=nad83</a><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
		<br/>
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