Day 6 - Long Trail

We slept in a little later due to not being in the shelter.  We left camp around 8 am and began our walk around Little Rock Pond and up to White Rocks Cliff.  Up top we found not one but two cairn gardens!  It's very cool to see how creative everyone is with rock art!  From here it was a quick and easy downhill past the Greenwall Shelter and down past a waterfall at Bully Brook.  We had just crossed a gravel road and were going steeply downhill to VT 140 when NoKey turns his ankle and falls downhill.  He took a bad tumble, but thankfully didn't hit his head on one of the many large rocks.

Little Rock Pond

We then began our climb up Bear Mountain, which was definitely harder than I remember on our thru hike in 2012!  We also saw a porcupine in the forest on our way up, which was pretty exciting.  We reached the summit and were pretty tired, but we carried on downhill to the Minerva Hinchey Shelter for lunch.  When we came down this stretch of trail in 2012, we saw a work crew installing water bars and building land bridges over drainage pipes.  This trail was beautiful and dry!  

A cairn garden on White Rocks Cliff

After lunch we climbed a steep hill behind the shelter before heading down into Clarendon Gorge.  We saw two large groups of boys that couldn't have been older than 10 or 11 and they were looking pretty tired.  The hill going down into the gorge is incredibly steep!  We reached the swinging bridge and continued across the road to climb up and out of the gorge.  This climb out was no joke, a boulder-strewn crevice going about 700 feet straight up.  We reached the top of the hill and the Clarendon Shelter before heading up to Beacon Hill.

The view of Clarendon Airport on the north side of the gorge. 

We were starting to get pretty tired at this point and finally began walking downhill, passing lots of weekenders on their way up to the Clarendon Shelter.  When we got to a certain road crossing, we began looking for the elusive secret shelter.  Someone going SoBo told us they had no luck finding it and I can see why. I followed my directions and found nothing.  I asked a man out in his driveway and he told me he knew where it was, but said it was more than 1.25 miles away.  We followed his directions and didn't find it, so we hiked on to the Governor Clement shelter for the night, making for another 19 mile day!  Tomorrow we are only heading 10.4 miles because our resupply is at the post office in Killington and we can't pick it up until Monday morning.  We will take two near-o days instead of a zero to save some money!

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!

Day 4 - Long Trail

We ended up waking up pretty early since everyone in the shelter seemed to be packing up before 6 am!  We got an early start at 7:05 and began our ten-mile trek town.  The trail was very muddy this morning, but we did start out with a beautiful  view of Stratton pond at the very beginning of our hike.  We quickly did the 5 miles to the next shelter in less than 2 hours and the trail came out onto an old roadbed.  

Stratton Pond in the morning light. 

We walked the old and eroded road for about a mile before coming to Prospect Rock, where we were treated to an amazing view of the mountains and Manchester Center, our destination for today!  The next few miles we were focused on getting to town and we definitely got there fast, rolling in before noon! We went to the post office and resupplied at Price Chopper since one of our meals got moldy in our box.  We met an AT NoBo named Low Profile who was also staying at the hostel with us, so we had lunch together and got a ride up to Green Mountain House.

It actually says Long Trail, not Appalachian Trail! 

Jeff, the owner, picked us up and brought us to what can only be described as heaven on earth!  This hostel is a house with a kitchen and private rooms.  You get free laundry AND a pint of Ben and Jerry's with your stay!  I went for the Half Baked.  Our room even had a Finger Lakes Trail poster in it, so I think we were destined to stay here!  Tonight Low Profile, NoKey, and I will be grilling steaks and asparagus for dinner... Can't wait!  

The view from Prospect Rock. 

Video Post - another fire tower on day 3

This view is from Stratton Mountain in Vermont - the peak where Benton MacKaye envisioned the Appalachian Trail in the early 1900s.

Video post! Glastenbury Mountain fire tower

View on day 3 of our Long Trail hike in Vermont.  

Day 3 - Long Trail

We started pretty early this morning to make up for lost miles.  We were shocked to see the fire tower on Glastenbury was less than 5 minutes away from the shelter.  I guess our 2012 guide book was wrong!  I climbed up and took some photos and a video and we headed back on our way.  We had a pretty easy morning and the first eight miles went by before 11 a.m.  We stopped for lunch at the Story Spring Shelter and four other NoBo's showed up nearly right behind us and we all had lunch together before heading back out for the afternoon.

Looking south from Glastenbury Mountain fire tower. 

We got down to FS117 and then Kelley Stand Road when we got our first trail magic - ice cold root beers and KitKat bars from Ron!  His wife, Jersey, is a section hiker we met at the shelter last night.  The soda and candy gave us a good amount of energy to get up and over our big mountain for the day.  We began climbing up Stratton Mountain and it honestly wasn't as hard as we thought it looked on paper!  There were a few steep and rocky sections, but that is really the norm in Vermont.  We reached the top in less than an hour and a half and met the caretaker before climbing up the tower.  It was a clear but windy afternoon, but thankfully this tower had all the windows installed!  I took tons more photos and video and we then began our ascent down to the shelter.

A blaze in the middle of the trail, surrounded by ferns. 

The climb down Stratton was just as steep, rocky, and muddy, but we made it the 3.6 miles to the Stratton Pond Shelter pretty quickly as well.  After all is said and done, we hiked 19.3 miles on trail, plus the 0.2 miles to the shelter.  It's amazing to make these kinds of miles when you aren't an AT thru hiker with 1600 miles under your belt!  Tomorrow we are going to get up early and get into Manchester Center around lunchtime for our resupply.  

The plaque on top of Stratton Mountain. 

Day 2 - Long Trail

We started out by climbing up to the top of Harmon Hill under a blue sky.  It was already nice and warm and when we hit the top of the hill we were greeted by ripe raspberries at the top and a view of Bennington.  We then did the steep hillside down the rock staircase to route 9. 

From here, we went uphill steeply again to the Melville Nauheim Shelter and took a lunch break.  NoKey has been dehydrated so we made sure to refill and drink our water before moving on.  We met a southbounder named Rocco at Hell Hollow Brook and chatted with him before rock hopping across due to the bridge being out.

Hell Hollow Brook

From here we did quite a few ups and downs on Porcupine Ridge leap frogging with northbounders and passing tons of southbounders.  We really began getting worn out before we had to climb one of the last hills of the day up to the Goddard Shelter.  The rock stairs were steep all the way up and thunder began clapping overhead.  I finally reached the piped spring prior to the shelter and filled my water and rehydrated my dinner.  I ran inside the shelter and set down my gear waiting for NoKey, who thankfully made it to the shelter just as the rain started to fall. 

The rain stopped for a short moment and then began again several more times for the next three hours.  We had originally been planning on hiking out and up to the fire tower to camp, but since the trail was wet and more storms might hit tonight, we stayed in the shelter instead.  We will get up early in the morning to make up the additional two miles.  We at least met quite a few Long Trail thru hikers here, so that was nice for us.

The fungus among us! 

Day 1 - Long Trail

We got a later start than we had planned, but we hit the trail in North Adams at about 11:30 after meeting some trail angels who offered to let us leave our car with them.  We immediately began a gentle uphill climb, passing the Sherman Brook campsite and Pete's Spring.  This spring has an effervescent quality, the water bubbling out of the sandy bottom.  I chugged a bottle and we headed on up the hill to Eph's View and the Vermont state line!

We made it, again! 

We had a short lunch here and began doing some ups and downs, meeting people every mile or so - both NoBo and SoBo.  After doing a few more miles we reached some power lines at the highest point of our day, 2800 feet, to find a beautiful view of the Adirondacks to one side and Vermont mountains to the other.  We also found a bonus at the power lines - fresh raspberries!  We are handfuls and then began our descent down to our stop for the night at Congdon shelter.

Roaring Branch Pond

On the way in we walked across bog bridges and through a bog.  We got a few photos since it was raining on us during this part of our thru hike back in 2012.  We made it to the shelter about 6:30 and met a dozen or so hikers.  Several people we saw hiking this afternoon showed up as well.  I would guess there are between 14-18 people here, which is about three times as many as we saw on the whole finger lakes trail!  We had dinner and settled in for an early night at about 8:30.  Vermont is a lot less muddy than it was in 2012!