VT Long Trail days 4-6
Day 4
My morning routine was pretty usual, pack up while eating breakfast, this time of granola with powdered milk and freeze dried strawberries. I hiked back to the trail and the travel was easy for the first mile or so. Prospect Rock was on the way so I did the tiny detour to the rock and overlook. The fall foliage is just starting to come in.
The morning was nice and comfortable hiking, relatively flat until I’d start the climb up Bromley, another mountain turned ski resort. I took lots of photos of the mushrooms I passed on the way.
I was debating stopping at the shelter coming up to make use of the privy, but as I started walking towards it, it turned downhill steeply. I really didn’t want to do unnecessary climbing to get back, so I hiked on. Good thing too. I ran into Recon and G-bolt, the two older guys from the second night AND they brought me a cookie! It was so kind of them to do that and to think, if I had went to the shelter, I’d have missed them completely. It was only about 3 minutes after I turned back that I saw them. My already good morning got even better.
Shortly after seeing them again, I went to check out Spruce Peak. It was a quick side trip with very mild scrambling to the top. I left my pack and clambered to the top. The view wasn’t great, but still a fun side trip.
I took more photos of interesting fungus and hit the road around 1030. This is where hikers will get rides into Manchester from. I planned to head thru to Rutland/Killington, so on I went.
At the parking lot, another hiker was being dropped off. It was another woman and around my age! I’d mostly just seen older men and older couples so far. We chatted briefly before I kept hiking. I stopped at the brook to fill up on water and she caught up and started chatting more. Her name’s Swamp Witch and we bonded over having hiked the PCT. I left first and did the climb up to the top of Bromley where I planned to have lunch. They leave the warming huts open in the off season for hikers to use. I climbed the big metal structure and got a great view over the surrounding area.
Time for lunch. I headed in to get out of the wind. I laid out all my wet gear in hopes things may dry a little inside. I may have mentioned this before, but I really don’t want to get trench foot. It hurts.
Swamp Witch joined shortly after and we chatted through lunch. After an hour, I headed out to start hiking, stopping at the privy before descending and Swamp Witch hiked on.
I caught up to her again on the next climb and took the lead. It was another 1000’ climb up to the top of Styles and Peru Peaks. It was still muddy in the low points, but in some areas the trail maintainers are kind enough to add boardwalks.
I reached Peru Peak shelter at 1630. It was still a little early and I wanted to keep going, so I went on towards Lost Pond shelter, another 5 miles. It’d be a later evening. If I had planned ahead more, I could have camped sooner. But alas, I didn’t have enough water to make camp.
My feet were getting pretty tired even though the hiking wasn’t hard. I threw on an audio book to distract me as I hiked on to the next shelter. I did have a pleasant surprise at the first glimpse of what the trail will be farther north. There was some rock slab walking. It wasn’t scrambling, but still an interesting highlight.
I reached the shelter at 1820 and set up inside. I was the only one there, but I had passed a bunch of people on my way so I knew that wouldn’t last. Swamp Witch was in shortly later and set up a tent and an older couple section hiking the AT came in as well. I shared the shelter with them that night and we had a nice chat over dinner and breakfast the next morning.
Day 5
The morning was typical for this trail. Wake up, go pee, grab my bear canister, make breakfast, and pack while eating. I was out an hour later at 0730. I had slept in a little. I still had more descending to do before I go to the flatter section. It was another beautiful day with the start of the foliage changing and clearer skies.
I walked around a lovely lake early in the day before heading up a gentle yet longer climb.
At the top of the climb were a couple of blue blazes (non Long Trail trails) that I explored. One was a little over half a mile side trip that led to a really good overlook. Where I sat and enjoyed the view for a bit. Would have been a good lunch spot if I brought enough water to stop.
An hour after the overlook, I made it down to Bully Brook where I stopped for a lunch of hot ramen. I had a nice spot next to the water and relaxed for an hour before heading back out.
After lunch, there was another 1000’ climb where I took a side trail to an overlook with an obscured view.
Up, up the mountain I went and then back down the other side to the Minerva Hinchey shelter. This was the place to be apparently. I was only 1600, but I was good on time to make my reservation at the inn in a few days so I stopped early to hang out with everyone else. There ended up being 12 of us there that night. I tented since the shelter would be pretty full. Half of the people were AT section hikers and the rest of us were Long Trail thrus.
Day 6
The next morning I was out at 0700 and the day was pretty typical, lots of ups and downs. This morning the trail went right next to a nice rock overlook where I stopped for a little bit and enjoyed the view.
At the bottom of the first descent, was a neat little gorge with a suspension bridge crossing it.
I had some pretty steep climbing after that required using my hands to get up some of the rocks. After the usual 1000’ of climbing, the trail evened out for a little and I was moving quickly again. I passed an AT hiker going SoBo who said I should go to the farmstead. I remembered briefly seeing something about it, but hadn’t looked into it. I’m glad he mentioned it though. I wasn’t far from it (less than a mile) and it was close to lunch time. When I hit the road, I turned left and did the very short ¼ mile walk to the Stones Throw Farmstead.
It was super cute. They had a little self service farm stand where I bought an excess of food for lunch. Chocolate milk, maple kefir, crackers, hummus, and goat cheese. They had a nice set up outside for people to enjoy the food with picnic tables and a little area for hikers with a log book, hiker box, and charging station.
I sat there for over an hour enjoying the day. So lovely and a great break from hiking. On my way out, I bought even more. I got an ice cream sandwich for the road walk back and a bag of shortbread cookies for later. It was great.
As I was reaching the trailhead, I saw Swamp Witch and yelled out to her to go there. After hearing there was ice cream, she turned around to check it out.
Much of my afternoon consisted of climbing up Killington. This time I had closer to 2500’ up to go. It wasn’t bad, just long. I had the trail to myself it seemed. I hit the junction for Killington summit around 1545 and started up the final bit. I dropped my pack as the trail got steeper and did the last bit without it. The top had a sweeping view of the areas. It was pretty but I didn’t linger too long. I still wanted to get to Pico either to summit and continue on or stay at the shelter for the night and summit in the morning.
I hiked the steep rocky trail back to my pack and grabbed it to continue the rest of the way.
The saddle between the two mountains was relatively quick walking with some ups and downs. I passed mile 100 and soon reached the turn off for Pico somewhere around 1730. I had a 0.5 mile side trek to the shelter than another 0.4 to the summit. At the shelter, I decided I’d hike in the morning. I didn’t want to do an evening hike. Sunrises are easier.
I settled into the semi-spooky shelter. It’s a bit crooked and probably gets a lot of traffic. People are not known for taking care of things that aren’t theirs. It was covered in graffiti and carvings and had more trash than is normal. I put a bunch in my trash bag to take out the next day.
I changed which bunk to sleep in 3 different times before settling on the bottom by the door. One had a bunch of black widow looking spiders and one was too close to the mouse hangout. I ate my ramen dinner at the table while getting some nice views of the sunset through the shelters windows.
Time to sleep. Tomorrow would be a morning summit of Pico.
Stay tuned for future posts as I get further along on the trail! Posts typically release Mondays and/or Wednesdays 1200est.
