for anyone who is in a hurry
the short form for this & my following messages is
that over the past 2 full days of fairly exhausting
play
i only managed to eke out a single additional triple
berkshire town tripoint visit class a
but can thus finally count 22 perfect hits out of the
possible total of 44
leaving me now fully halfway to perfection
& have accordingly begun the long anticipated halftime
intermission
the medium form is that i also revisited the hapiri
pond again
only slightly more eventfully than before
&
can now add 4 new elusive tripoints to my previous
total
making 12 of those in all now too
while only 10 tripoints still remain untried
oh & then i also earnestly tried for mah
the highest point of massachusetts
tho i am not sure why
if not just as a spontaneous first act of halftime
intermission
& the long form begins here
i hit the kmart in great barrington for some new
polaroid film first thing yesterday morning
& was helped to an unfamiliar looking package of it by
a clerk who assured me it was the right stuff but only
boxed in a new form
then proceeded to the hapiri pond with high hopes for
a new low water level & wasnt disappointed
but the monument was still not visible in the mud
what i did see was positively breathtaking
the bright sun rising thru & over the trees along the
shore was illuminating every crease & dimple on the
mucky bed of the pond
all just inches below the already drastically reduced
water level
& it was the best look at the target area that any
hapiri seeker might ever get
& if i just waited a few minutes more til the sun
cleared all the treetops
then i would have the complete as well as best the
imaginable picture
which i might even study much more carefully at
leisure to try to catch an impression of what i was
looking for
excitedly i started to load the camera
& soon discovered the new film didnt fit
hahaha
but no matter
for i think the big discovery of the day was that
since no marker stood out from the pond bed at a time
when the bed was as lucidly clear as it might ever be
then the marker must have sunk a few inches or more
into the muck during the past 90 years
hopefully just enough to cover it up & not completely
lose it forever
so it might still be recovered
i thought
by probing or raking the muck
or perhaps by some sort of sonar or xray detection
device
applied to the most probable areas
but i had to leave with just that new thought for a
future try
& not much closer to a final resolution of what may
well prove to be the hardest of all the 44 markers to
recover
reference map
http://www.berkshireweb.com/themap/index.html
but next i had to hit the walmart in coltsville on the
northeast side of pittsfield to get the right film
so that altered my next try
which had been planned for halapi
or hancock lanesborough pittsfield
to chdala
or cheshire dalton lanesborough
http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4708424&e=649522&s=50&size=l&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25
having parked where the power line crosses brough road
i found the unposted clearcut actually too overgrown
to climb
& the adjacent woods not only posted but nearly
impassable
so i almost threw up my hands right then & there
but a little perseverance soon landed me quite by
surprise on a private driveway that also gave onto a
jeep track which climbed straight up the clearcut
tho steep it was otherwise easy going
& things werent nearly so bad as i had at first
supposed
eventually i reached the appalacian trail
& followed the topography over a rise & down to the
certain target area
which i scoured without finding any marker
tho it was shown on the topo only a stones throw from
the trail
next tho already tired & nonplussed i advanced toward
chdawi
or cheshire dalton windsor
which proved not any easier
but i am so sleepy now thinking about it that i will
have to continue the report in the morning
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