Day 21 - Long Trail

We finally arrived at our last four miles on the Long Trail!  Since we only had 4.4 miles to hike to the Canadian border this morning we slept in and got a late start, 8:30!  We began the day like every other day in Vermont mostly, by walking up a rock slab to a mud pit,  this one being directly behind Shooting Star shelter.  We had half a mile to walk up Burnt Mountain, which wasn't named very recently we had decided since it was lush, green, and VERY muddy and wet!  There was a small view to the west, but we had our eyes on the prize and were ready to get finished with the trail.  We practically ran downhill to North Jay Pass and our final road crossing. 

After stumbling around on the road for a few minutes looking for the trail, which is ALWAYS better marked for SoBo's for whatever reason, we found our trail and began a short climb up our final hill - Carleton Mountain.  The trail was pretty easy at this point, only getting steep in that special Vermont way once or twice.  I let out a huge victory yell at the top and even danced the Carlton, just because.  On our way back downhill, we ran back into Neo and started hiking with him.  It was clear at this point Vermont wasn't going to get us go without a fight - lots of mud pits with only a few branches haphazardly thrown in for our attempts to cross them.  We had been walking with Neo for about half an hour when we came around a bend and Neo just exclaimed "Oh my God, FINALLY!"   We had reached the wooden sign proclaiming the northern terminus of the Long Trail!  We took photos of each other and then headed up the trail a few more feet to the obelisk at the Canadian border.  We took a long time here until a group of SoBo's showed up.  Now is when the real adventure began!

Another thru hike in the books! 

Before getting back to the main road, we had to first walk a half mile downhill to Journey's End shelter, where the entire valley smelled like a rotting animal corpse - including the water!  Once passing the camp, the trail turned into an old road bed and we walked 3/4 of a mile to the parking area.  There were only three cars here, none of them with people, and we knew we would be road walking.  We walked with Neo for the 1.2 miles of Journey's End Road, passing occasional homes or winter cabins.  When we were getting close to the intersection of Journey's End and North Jay Road I heard a car approaching.  I ran as fast as I could with my thumb up to the intersection and reached it just as the truck was passing.  He stopped and told NoKey and me he could take us to Jay.  Neo was headed the other direction, to North Troy, and would have to continue to walk.  

I'm here! 

We rode to Jay and the man took us all the way to Route 100, which is where we decided to go so we could get to our car back in Killington.  We were picked up by another man from Tennessee who was on his way to Maine.  He turned around to pick us up and took us down to Troy.  We got another ride from Troy down to Westfield.  It took about 40 minutes in Westfield to get another ride, this time from Ryan from NYC with his young daughter.  He laughed that his wife had no idea what he was out doing today and that if she knew he was picking up hitchhikers she'd be pretty upset!  He dropped us off at the crossroad for Lowell, which is the road you take to get to Hazen's Notch.  Brittany picked us up next.  She was going to drop us off further down on Route 100, but thought we'd have an easier time getting picked up on Route 7, which is where Rutland is.  She took us all the way to downtown Burlington. 

The Journey's End! 

From Burlington we had planned on taking the bus to Rutland.  We stopped for tacos and then walked around downtown, as it was Saturday afternoon and there was a lot going on.  We were pretty dirty and carrying backpacks, so we elicited a few stares!  We got to the bus station and were informed there is no bus to Rutland and the woman couldn't even tell us how to get to Route 7, so we googled and walked our way there.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of urban sprawl in Burlington and that's bad news for hitchhiking.  NoKey went into a gas station to make us a sign that said "hikers heading south" and the sign worked like a charm.  We were picked up by a couple who took us to the outskirts of the sprawl and then picked up by a guy who was heading back into New York.  When he dropped us off, we were back on country roads again. 

The end of a long and rewarding trip. 

From here, we were picked up by Walker, a young guy who recently put the new roof on the Inn at Long Trail and was headed to a music festival in Middlebury.  He took us all the way to the outer edges of Middlebury where we were picked up pretty quick by a guy headed to Rutland.  After talking with him for a few minutes about wild mushrooms, IPA's, and even dogs, he decided to give us a ride all the way to our car in Wallingford.  We reached our car at 6:30 after hitchhiking for 7 hours.  We headed up to the Inn at Long Trail to camp on the lawn for the night.  We were hoping for a shower also, but no such luck.  Thankfully, we had brought a bag from home with clean clothes and even some deodorant!  We headed inside to have celebratory beers and dinner with some other hikers and live music.  We fell asleep to the sounds of traffic on Route 4 at Sherburne Pass.  A fitting end to a hell of a journey!

Video Blog - view on Jay Peak

A quick video from Jay Peak - and we somehow were the only people up there for a quick minute! 

Day 20- Long Trail

We woke up to heavy rains at around 4 am and the rains stayed heavy most of the morning.  The young guys headed south at about 6:30 while NoKey, Southpaw, and myself stayed in bed until around 7:15.  We got up and cooked hot breakfasts and sat around talking until about 9 am, when the rain had slowed and we finally headed out.  We had several climbs this morning over three small peaks before finally getting to Domey's Dome. It was around 11 and we were both out of energy and decided to stop for an early lunch break.  Afterward we continued downhill steeply, slipping and sliding down wet rocks and roots only to land in mud puddles.  Whatever dried out the past few days definitely was wet again thanks to the downpour last night and this morning.  On our descent down into Jay Pass the sun and blue skies finally made an appearance we we thought we might actually get a view on Jay Peak after all!

So close! 

When we got to the pass and then began climbing up Jay we weren't sure what to expect.  We knew it would be a 2000-foot climb up to the top but we also knew this was a pretty popular mountain, so we were hoping for trail maintenance!  The footing on this trail turned out to be pretty good.  The grade wasn't nearly as steep as the shorter peaks we climbed this morning and there was good drainage built in to the trail.  We headed up to a ski slope and hiked parallel to it for about a quarter mile before being deposited out onto a platform to cross the slope.  We could have just taken the slope up, but instead our trail went up and over some steep rocks.  I was motivated by hunger and ran up quickly, making it to the top by 1:30.  We stopped and had lunch and talked to a few people before deciding to look for some water.  It turns out there is a restaurant and bathrooms up there too for the people who ride up on the sky tram, so we went inside and charged our phones, had beer and ice cream, and filled our water.

NoKey hiking down Jay Peak. 

We walked down a ski slope for a while before heading back Into the woods and being deposited back out onto the same ski slope.  This time we saw a shirtless, shoeless man pulling a stroller behind him up the ski slope.  With a French accent he asked us how much further to the top.  He had apparently pulled the baby all the way up from the bottom!  It was very strange.  We then went back into the woods and headed to Laura Woodward shelter.  We talked to the people there for a quick minute before heading up and over Doll Peak to Shooting Star shelter. 

Directional signage on Jay Peak

The 4.3 miles to this shelter went quickly, although the terrain was pretty nasty.  The mud was so stagnant and thick over here that it was growing mold and moss.  Some mud pits were so thick your trekking pole would sink nearly to the handle. Staying upright was pretty important!  We reached our shelter only to find the water here was a stagnant puddle in a leaf pit.  It was kind of a bummer for our final night on the trail.  It was only NoKey, me, and a guy named Neo at the shelter and we all hit the bed by 8 pm.  A pretty lame last night on trail.  Tomorrow is only 4.4 miles to the border!

Day 19 - Long Trail

We woke up to gray skies this morning, but we had heard the rain was supposed to hold off until much later tonight, so we got an early start to get in our 14.5 miles.  We began by hiking down to Devil's Gulch, which was the inspiration for the Mahoosic Notch on the AT.  Fortunately enough for us, this was only about 500 yards of boulder jumbles  instead of a mile!  We only had a short uphill section before reaching the road at Eden Crossing. Now our day was about to get tougher!

Hiking through Devil's Gulch! Yes, this is the trail  

From the road we had a 2000-foot climb up to the peak of Belvedere, which began gentle enough on old mining roads - there was an asbestos mine here in the early 20th century.  About 20 minutes in the climb gradually got steeper before coming out on the peak, where there was a fire tower.  We didn't head up the tower as we were still thinking it might rain, so we kept going north toward Lockwood Pond and the Tillotson shelter.  We had lunch before we began climbing and descending a series of small peaks in the afternoon.

Lockwood Pond

After the Tillotson shelter, the trail changed dramatically.  We are now in the dreaded section 12 of the Long Trail, which doesn't really get a lot of love or maintenance.  The trail, even though the rain has been gone for a few days now, was deep with mud and brush.  There was a surprising amount of undergrowth for a forest this far north in the U.S.  Our pace slowed quite a bit and by the time we reached the top of Haystack Mountain, we were thoroughly exhausted.  We had an incredibly steep decent to Hazen's Notch on wet rocks where we actually climbed down backwards to avoid falling.  When we got to the bottom, a very kind person left bottles of water with the sign "Thirsty?? help yourself!" so we happily did!

 

Trail magic! 

We only had a mile and a half left of our day to the Hazen's Notch Camp and we made it before 4:30. There were three other thru hikers here, southbounders.  As the evening wore on, a family of five showed up and another NoBo hiker as well. We hungrily ate two dinners by a campfire until the rain set in.  It is supposed to rain all night and until about noon tomorrow, so we might be calling it a short day.  We are only 17.2 miles from Canada, so we are getting pretty excited!

Day 18- Long Trail

We left town early thanks to Dave from Nye's B&B.  We had an epic breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage, eggs, juice, and real coffee! Powered on town food we began our first ascent to Prospect Rock and, just before hitting the top, we saw a blog follower - Ingrid.  We talked trail for a few minutes before heading back up the trail to Roundtop shelter.  Even though it was earlier than 10 am we had already been sweating buckets!  We began our descent to Post Road before beginning our next climb to Laraway Mountain.

Heaven on earth! 

The footing was good and the trail was in great shape, so getting up and over this mountain went pretty quick.  We got to the Corliss Camp very early in the day and decided we should at least attempt to push on toward Spruce Ledge to get an early start on the rain predicted for tomorrow. 

On our way up Butternut Mountain we ran into a few small groups of college students and chatted with them before finally making it up.  We had three false summits, but the climb was pretty easy:  the fact that the mud is starting to dry up due to the hot temperatures definitely helped also.  We crossed some great snowmobile trails and had more good footing all the way to Bowen Mountain, actually following old roads and nice trails most of the way.  We made it to the Spruce Ledge shelter and camped for the night with another group of college students and two older guys doing a section hike.  

Crossing the Lamomille River! 

The college students played some word games and offered us hot chocolate before bed, which was a very nice gesture.  We all crashed before 8:30, falling asleep to the sounds of loons on the pond below us.

Day 7 - Long Trail

We slept in this morning since we thought we had no chance of making it to Killington before 11 am.  We began hiking at 8 am and immediately began our climb of Killington (the mountain, not the town!)  The climb started out gradual, but became much steeper as the miles went by!  We stopped at a beautiful spring about 2/3 of the way up to refill our water and then continued on up the hill, now getting views to the east.

Looking east- I could count five ridge lines when I was looking out that way! 

We reached what is considered the top on the Long Trail at Cooper Lodge Shelter, but the peak of Killington is actually 0.2 miles higher.  We climbed up to get the view and reached the top at 10:30.  We couldn't believe how quickly we hiked 7 miles this morning!  From the top, thru hikers can take a free gondola ride to the resort down the hill.  We did this to kill time since we were planning a short day.  We found out the post office was actually open until noon and a free bus was coming in less than 5 minutes that drove right by!  We hopped on and rode to the post office and the Inn at Long Trail to get a room for the night. We might not have found the Secret Shelter, but our luck today was incredible!  

The amazing view from the very top of Killington! 

From here, we have an easy day hike of the trail, the Sherburne Pass Trail, up to Pico Peak.  Pico is where we were planning to stay tonight, but since we got to town in time we no longer have to camp!  We chose to take the blue blazed Sherburne Pass Trail because it is the original and historic Long Trail.  It was rerouted in 1999 to the present location down the hill.  Since we took the white blaze back in 2012, we decided to blue blaze this time for a change of scenery!  

The Inn at Long Trail!   

Tonight we will get laundry done and have a beer in the Irish Pub while listening to live Irish music. We have an easy day planned out of town tomorrow to help us adjust to the tougher part of the Long Trail.  We say goodbye to the AT in the morning... North to Canada we go! 

Video Blog - the view on Bromley

The view from Bromley, a ski peak in Vermont. 

Day 5 - Long Trail

I got up early with Low Profile and NoKey to make coffee and breakfast before our hike out of town.  Last night the three of us pooled money to make steaks, baked potatoes, asparagus, and salad for dinner.  We also bought breakfast sausage and nectarines for the morning.  Green Mountain House supplied coffee, eggs, and cereal for a huge and delicious breakfast.  We said goodbye to Low Profile and NoKey, Stretch, and myself headed out to the trail at 8 am.

Me, NoKey, and Stretch. 

We immediately began our climb up Bromley, which was nice and gentle nearly all the way up.  Wen we were about a quarter mile from the top our trailed joined a ski slope so it got incredibly steep!  We were treated to an amazing view up top and Stretch caught up to us at this point.  We hiked together down to Mad Tom Notch, passing a few day hikers.  From here, we climbed up to Styles Peak for another view looking east and then the trail dipped down and back up to Peru Peak.  We headed down to the Peru Peak shelter for lunch and met Steam, another Long Trail NoBo.

Me standing on Bromley in the morning sun. 

From the shelter, we walked past Griffith Lake and had mostly level walking until we hit a sign that said "Baker Peak 0.1."  This 0.1 is a straight up rock climb!  We were thankful it was overcast because in 2012 we did this climb in the late afternoon sun!  We had beautiful views at the top and then made our way downhill toward Lost Pond shelter.  When we got here a SoBo told us there was beer at the road, which was about 3 miles away.  We had planned on taking a break here, but we decided to try and catch the trail magic ahead. We walked downhill some more and passed Bernardo, another Long Trail NoBo, and kept walking to Big Branch shelter.  NoKey left me to filter water while he ran to the road for the magic.  I carried five liters of water uphill to the road crossing and met him about half an hour later to find no magic was anywhere.

NoKey climbing Baker Peak. 

We took a break for a while as we had been planning to do that earlier until we chased down the empty trail magic.  Our original plan was to stealth camp tonight because Little Rock Pond shelter is a pay per person site.  We took a long break and decided to head up to the shelter anyway. We made it about 0.1 from the shelter and saw a pretty nice tent site and decided to set up camp.  We already had plenty of water so we were good for the night.  The temperature was a little cooler than we expected so it will make for great sleeping weather!