After hanging around Waitsfield, VT for almost three hours on Friday August 2nd we knew it was time to make our way back to the trail. A man passing us in the parking lot told us that we could expect sunny weather until the following Wednesday. We said goodbye to Jester again, assuming it would be the last time we saw him, since we had another 15.5 miles planned for the day, up and over Camel's Hump. We got a hitch back to Appalachian Gap and were back on trail at 10:40AM. We climbed out of the Gap about 2.6 miles to Birch Glen Lodge. The trail was pretty difficult and I had a stomach cramp from drinking chocolate milk and then eating a whole chocolate peanut butter Talenti ice cream so I could have a cold soak container. I took a break at the Lodge but wasn't hungry enough to eat any snacks.
The next 2.3 mile stretch to Cowle's Cove Shelter had a lot of mud bogs but was able to avoid walking through the thick of them and kept my shoes dry. Thankfully the temperatures were cooler and less humid than at the beginning of the week. The miles were passing by soo slowly. I still wasn't ready to eat anything at the next shelter, but we still stopped to take a break. A NOBO hiker from Wisconsin was there - young guy named Weed Hopper - who always packed out a 6-pack of beer. It was nearly 3:00PM when I started the next climb up Burnt Rock Mountain - very steep ascent with a rock slab on top. On the way down I heard a hiker approaching behind me. I expected to see Weed Hopper, but it was Jester. Yikes. These miles were taking forever.
After the rocky summit of Burnt Rock Mountain the trail went down the Ladder Ravine - which was basically just a metal ladder leaning against a rock wall. I heard a lot of stories about people having trouble getting their large-breed dogs through this section - I wonder why...
I found Strider and Jester taking a snack break on the top of Mt. Ethan Allen. The summit of Camel's Hump was still three miles away and our intended shelter was three miles further. It was later afternoon and reality was starting to set in. I wasn't enjoying these miles. I really wanted to make it to Canada and I knew that it we were really committed to reaching the end of the trail we could do it, but we would be pushing it to the very last day. My toes, feet and ankle hurt and Strider's knee was giving him pain on the downhills. We were already LT section hikers, who would care if we did it in three sections rather than two? It was decided that we would cut our hike short - we would hike 35 more miles over Mt. Mansfield and be picked up at VT Route 108 in Stowe, VT on Monday morning.
I took a few minutes to hold a little pitty party for myself - I was disappointed. Last year's hike had gone so smoothly, I had hit every one of my intended target dates/mileage. Northern Vermont was rugged and challenging and I really had no reason to be discouraged. With the pressure off, I was hoping I could enjoy the last few days in the woods. I walked the last mile of the day to Montclair Glen Shelter alone and joined Strider, Jester, and some other hikers at the picnic table for dinner. Strider and I had only covered 11.8 miles that day (we had spent 3 hours in town).
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| Ladder Ravine |
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| Montclair Glen Shelter - LT Mile 174 |
The shelter had a bearbox and a caretaker, who collected a $5 fee. The sleeping platforms were very short and I slept cramped between the wall and the ladder to the upper platform. The thru hikers were in bed at hiker midnight - around 8:00PM. The other hikers stayed up later, making a good amount of noise, but eventually everyone settled down and the shelter was full of snores and farts.
In the middle of the night the shelter was woken up by knocking on the door. I looked at my watch - 9:40PM, okay maybe it only felt like the middle of the night. Someone finally got up to unlock the door for the midnight hiker. I didn't sleep well the rest of the night and got up before my alarm after listening to a rodent chewing from somewhere on the top bunk. I began hiking around 6:10 and started the two mile climb up Camel's Hump. As usual it took my body a while to warm up but the tough climb started almost immediately. After a bit of climbing the trail would flatten, and even descend a little. Then the summit would become visible through a clearing in the trees, this happened two or three times and I never seemed to be getting any closer. The climb had rock scrambles, high steps, and ladders, but at least there were no cobwebs to break above treeline.
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| Still climbing Camel's Hump |
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| Ascent to Camel's Hump |
I arrived at the empty summit around 7:30AM and found a seat in the rocks sheltered from the wind. Strider arrived about 10 minutes later and joined me while I ate my breakfast. It was a beautiful Saturday and I knew that soon the mountain would be swarming with day hikers. After enjoying the view for about 30 minutes I started the long 6.2 miles descent to US Route 2.
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| Strider and I snacking on Camel's Hump |
About 0.7 miles down there's a trail junction with a side trail to a parking lot. I met a 68 year old section hiker named Diet Coke. She had pieced together an AT thru hike doing mostly day and weekend hikes over the years and was working on finishing the LT. She asked if we could hike together for awhile so I slowed down to hike with her for a few miles. There were several more rock piles on the way down but eventually it smoothed out. The familiar sound of traffic echoing up the mountain from US Route 2 below could be heard for the last three miles of the descent. About 1.4 miles before the road I found Strider and Jester taking a snack break at Duxbury Window - a clearing in the trees with a bench and a view. I chatted with a group of hikers from the Green Mountain Club (GMC) - it was Long Trail Day and the club had a member hiking each section of the trail that day. They also said there was trail magic at the parking lot! I didn't expect to see any trail magic on this section of the Long Trail so I was excited to see a table set up when I got to Route 2 with drinks and snacks. A few more hikers asked if I was a caretaker (because of the green dress) - I joked about collecting the $5 fee.
It was noon and Jester, Strider, and I started the next stretch together, which was a three mile road walk. After about a mile on the road trail signs pointed into some fields, up and over some fence-styles, and then dead-ended at the fence of a chicken-coup. Apparently there was an on-going land dispute between some local land owners and the GMC. We could see white blazes on posts inside the chicken-coup. There were some farmers tending to their chickens who barely acknowledged us. We ended up walking down their driveway back to the road and continued down the shoulder.
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| Road walk with Jester and Strider |
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| Dead end at a land dispute on the Long Trail |
We crossed over the Winooski River on a footbridge, watching people enjoying the swimming holes. The last bit of the road walk was up a steep hill on fresh blacktop. It was hot and we were thirsty and in need of a break. As we re-entered the woods there was a small stream where we sat to refill our bottles and snacked. It was 1:45 in the afternoon and we had less than six miles to go. We were in no rush, it was nice to not be under pressure to hike quickly to make miles. There was a set of tough switchbacks but then the trail mellowed out to an easier trail, not covered in rocks and roots. I made it to the shelter at 4:45 after an extra 0.3 side trail, and 16.8 miles for the day, to Buchanan Lodge (LT Mile 190.8). I was exhausted, my feet were really hurting, my legs and armpits were chaffed and my dress was white with salty sweat stains. I did my best to rinse off in the small puddle of water that was the water source for shelter (using my Nalgene, not contaminating the water..). A woman who was out for six days to do a 50 mile stretch of the trail arrived and we all ate dinner together until the mosquitoes drove us into our sleeping bags.
I woke up at the usual time on Sunday, August 4th. It had rained in the middle of the night which got rid of the mosquitoes. I left at 6:10 to trek the 0.3 mile back to the trail. I was moving so slowly, the trail was rugged up and over Bolton Mountain. I passed two southbound hikers who said there wasn't any good water for several miles coming up. So far on the trip I had lucked out finding mostly cold streams and spring water so hiking through a dry stretch was unexpected. I took a break at Puffer Shelter to eat breakfast and looked out at the view - I got there around 8:50 and waited for the guys to catch up but when 9:30 rolled around and they still weren't there I kept moving.
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| Breakfast at Puffer Shelter |
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| 200 Miles on the LT |
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| Tangle of roots and rocks |
Still not large animal sightings but I saw a lot of moose poop on the miles leading up to Mt. Mansfield. I stopped at Taylor Lodge for another break, expecting the guys to catch up. A group of day hikers came in for a quick break. Someone had received a news alert about a shooting. I hadn't read any news and my phone had been mostly on airplane mode since I got on trail. It was nice to be detached from the real world. Two people in the group of day hikers noted that they were from DC - turns out they live probably less than a mile from me on the other side of the zoo. Small world. I still hadn't been passed by Strider or Jester which surprised me.
The next stretch of trail was easy, and then hard, and then easy, sometimes a smooth dirt path and other times a tangle of roots and rocks. Around 12:30PM I finally found a good enough stream to fill up my bottle and the guys finally caught me. We only had about five miles left for the day, but it was the hardest stretch, up and over Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont.
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| Lots of moose droppings |
The climb started with a steep rock scramble up the Forehead. The entire peak was exposed, but it was a beautiful sunny day with a breeze. There is a road to a visitor center towards the summit of the mountain so we started passing more and more people. We stopped briefly at the Visitor Center - there were porta potties but no vending machines and lots of families wandering around. We hiked to the Lips and continued to the summit. We made it there around 3:30 and hung out at the top for over an hour, snacking and chatting with the caretaker who keeps count of all the visitors.
The descent down the Adams Apple was short, only 1/2 mile, but very steep. Taft Lodge where we were sleeping was only 0.7 miles from the top and I arrived by 5:30, after 13.8 miles. There were several other hikers sleeping there and almost everyone had thru hiked the AT. The shelter was at around 3,500' and the temperature was supposed to drop into the 40s that night. We got in our sleeping bags early and looked up breakfast restaurants for the next morning.
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| Summit of Mt. Mansfield, highest point in Vermont |
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| Fly-by |
The next morning we only had about 2 miles to hike before reaching VT Route 108 where we would hitch into Stowe and wait for my Dad. We still had 2,000' to descend so I knew it was going to be slow. I was up and out at the usual time, assuming I would need the extra time to get down so they guys weren't waiting on me at the road. I put my puffy jacket on at the road while I wanted for Strider and Jester and ate all the remaining food in my food bag. We heard that it was an easy hitch into town but we weren't having much luck. It was Monday, August 5th and people were heading to work and didn't seem interested in picking up smelly hikers. The first car that pulled over could only fit one hiker so Jester took the ride. Strider and I got picked up minutes later from a nice guy who basically lived out of his car. I think I sat on a pile of clothes for the seven mile ride into town.
Stowe is a popular ski town, but is also quite busy during the summer. It was packed with families wandering around the two main streets. The three of us stopped at a breakfast diner, then a grocery store, and then another coffee shop before finding a shaded spot to wait for my Dad. He arrived around 10 - we dropped Jester back off at the trail and then drove the 4 hours back to the summer cabin in southern Maine.
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| Taft Lodge |
We hadn't made it to Canada. But we did hike over 100 miles in a little less than six full hiking days. Between last years AT hike and this year's trip Strider and I had both covered over 200 miles of the Long Trail. Only around 60 miles remained. Guess we'll be meeting up next year to finally reach the Canadian border.
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| VT 108 - Little over 100 miles covered |
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