OK, so god still loves the hash, but man he lets us know it is still winter. Actually I left Albany and it was sunny and close to 40 degrees. As I crossed over into MA on Rt 20 I noticed that there was snow on the sides of the road that was distinctly missing from the sides of the road in NY, hmmmm!! I of course not reading times and what not, had taken off from home for a 1:00 start time and as I get close to the park I give Chum a call and she tells me that the start time is at 2:00. That's good because I'm hungry, so I go to the start, grab some flour to mark the direction into the park to the start and head out to get something to eat. Feeling satisfied in the gastrointestinal department I headed back to the start to find Ditch Bitch heading (who said head) into the state park putting stickers on poles to mark the way. Arriving at the start we found Just Kim waiting alone and wisely staying warm in her car. The pack started to arrive in dribs and drabs until finally everyone showed up around 2:15, right on time for hashers, and still no sign of the hares. Finally Chum and COV come strolling out of the woods and smiling like the cats that ate the canary, oh what devious trail do they have set for us, we will find out soon enough. After a quick refreshment break and a chalk talk the hares were away, they didn't seem to be in much of a hurry as they walked across the field and gave the hounds a wonderful 2 full moons over the park. After waiting the allotted time, the pack circled for chalk talk and hasherobics to the tune of Hi, My Name is Joe, and then the pack was off.

Hounds being stupid as they are, we followed what we assumed was trail, and that was the direction that the hares had gone, wrong. That didn't stop the hounds though, as we looked up an old logging trail with no sign of trail markers anywhere, and nobody feeling energetic enough at this point, Nice Snatch came to the rescue and charged the hill, at least until it got really steep, at which point he fell from the lack of energy. At least that's what the pack thought from our vantage point, after hearing that he was on trail, the pack followed and found out the hill was partially thawed and it was his loss of footing that caused his demise, I mean fall. Trail continued up hill to a check point and to the right, or so we thought, more to follow. Onto another check point and a beer near already. Standing at the top of the old ski jump we looked down and saw a check point we hadn't seen before in the driveway below, HMMMM!! The pack gathered and liquid libations were consumed, but something was amiss. Looking below the beer near we saw the arrow pointing uphill. Could it be that the pack was astray? Well only a little, before anybody went back down (other than Canis Lickus to rescue Scruffy who’d headed back to the parking lot to obey that wise hash maxim: “NEVER LEAVE CAMP”), much discussion was had and the pack realized we had to go back from whence we came to get back on trail.

With the beer consumed and body temperatures falling the pack was away, back down the trail from which we came. I took the no trail leading directly up the hill, and in typical Dirtbag fashion, the pack seemed to think I was on trail and followed me, why, I don't know (“Baaaaaaa” – ed). At the top of trail there was still no trail markers to be found. So I made a decision to follow the path to the left, this proved to be the right path, because it ran into a check point, the first of many, that led us down the entire length of the Blue footpath, hence the theme. At every check point the pack gathered and sang a song, and then continued up, up, up to the summit (Dirtbag kindly ignores the usual wheezing and whining that accompanies these long climbs on a hash - ed). At the first check point after the summit I decided that the trail might leave the blue trail, and I followed the yellow trail, which proved to be seriously wrong, and I zenned across the forest on a logging trail back to the blue trail, but lo and behold there was no powder to be seen. I continued up to the road and around to Berry Pond, which I found out is the highest fresh water pond in the state of MA, oh the trivial bullshit we dig up on these runs. Looking across the pond I saw the pack gathered around what I found out was a jello shot check, my misfortune on missing the jello shots (other than jello shots our scribe really only missed some zigging and and equal amounts of zagging in the woods - ed). I caught up as quickly as I could and we were on trail that led up to where I had already been. I guess I made it there before the hares, again my misfortune as this could have been the perfect caught hare situation (Editor’s note: Dirtbag’s specialty is to catch hares who do not expect him to appear 15 minutes ahead of the pack and from a direction untouched by trail).

I mistakenly thought the trail went right at the next check point, when it actually went straight, and out to the road that I already had been on. Trail continued straight across the road and up along some tall pines which blocked the wind, which was howling across the summit, but good company and running with the wind instead of against it fortified the hounds onward and finally downward. Trail followed the road back down to the whiskey check in the middle of a clear mountain stream, which I'm sure wasn't as clear after the hounds had finished the whiskey check. At this point the trail turned into an Eagle/Turkey split. From the vantage point of the turkeys, the eagle trail actually looked easier, as their footing seemed better than ours (no, we are just crazier runners – the Eagles) and they were able to run as we had several slips just trying to walk down the asphalt and ice road. The turkeys had to wait for a 5 check, at least that's what we called it as it really didn't look like an S, so we waited until there were 5 hounds and continued down to the On-In back at the start. After everybody straggled in, and everybody witnessed a race amongst the DAL's Willy W*nker, Doctor Queer and Sperm Bank, circle was convened.

At this point a Happy Valley virgin hashit appeared (I guess they prepare these in advance as so many go missing) and it was duly awarded to all the Happy Valley Hashers. They nearly got it back too until a daring piece of thievery saw it departing up to Burlington.

Finally a Boston hashit (or not a hashit, by this time your scribe’s hands were too cold to write legibly) was produced and possibly awarded to Friar for his adventures with human waste products.

Circle was duly closed with a round of “Swing Low” including a new “Krusty” version slowed down in honor of our resident DJ’s record spinning issues. Hey, he’s too young to know his 33 rpm from his 45 rpm. Not a second too soon it transpired as just as the pack formed their cars into a line to follow the hares to the on after two State Trooper cars appeared. While 30 some of the pack pretended not to know anything about beer and singing, Pigf*cker decided to ignore Massachusetts’ finest and just keep on drinking. Luckily when confronted he played dumb and being a hasher this came so naturally he escaped further punishment. Other than a sure fire hashit nomination at the next run.

On-On!

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