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Date Climbed
Distance
Time
Conditions
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Mount Mansfield
Killington Peak
Equinox Peak
Vermont County
Vermont County Return to the United States Highpoints Page
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For our yearly "back east" trip to visit Beth's family, we worked in a few extra days for a trip up to Vermont, with its highpoint, Mount Mansfield, as our primary goal. The state is aptly named: Vermont roughly translates as "Green Mountain", which is what they call themselves anyway, and what serves as an accurate description of its terrain: forested peaks pretty much up and down the state. Up until August 5th, 2006, Vermont was just one of three states that I had never set foot in (Maine and Alaska still remain unvisited by me).
We had already spent 10 days or so poking around Virginia, which was fun and interesting, but we had continuous heat and humidity that was kicking our butts on a daily basis. From Wintergreen in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia we made a long day's drive to Binghamton, New York, spending the night at a Super-8 motel. We just so happened to exit the freeway at the "Spiedie Festival", which meant a lot of traffic for us. We had no idea what a "spiedie" was. I asked the girl at the Super-8 counter, and got a stream-of-consciousness answer something like "you know those little dumplings they're like that Lupo's is the best". I still had no idea what one looked like, but apparently Lupo is the man to see in those parts for spiedies. That night, it was top billing on the news.
We spent another day just getting to Burlington, Vermont, from Binghamtom. We ended up taking lots of local roads because the interstates were crammed with New Yorkers escaping the city. We rolled into Burlington around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 5th. A cooler, drier air mass from Canada had rolled in, too, and knocked out all that sticky humidity to sea, and we had really nice, breezy, cool and pleasant weather. Beautiful! Our plan was to hike the Vermont state highpoint the next day, and visit the Stowe area while there.
There are three common ways to attain Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield. The Long Trail, for a full day of hiking, or a gondola that lets out just below the peak, or the Stowe Mountain Toll Road. This third option seemed most attractive, as it ends at a small parking area up on the mountain's ridge, but still leaves a 1.5 mile one-way hike to the summit with about 550 feet of gain. We weren't looking for another full day of hiking, but a half-day of casual fun. From Burlington we followed Interstate-89 toward Waterbury (home of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream), then north toward Stowe Village, then along another highway to the toll complex. Stowe is one of Vermont's premier ski areas, and in the summer, transforms itself to a hiking, biking and walking haven, with lots of small cafes and art walks to attract tourists, and beautiful countryside to explore via the feet or on wheels. Mount Mansfield itself is a huge magnet for hikers and tourists. The whole area is just gorgeous and definitely worth some extended time there.
We reached the Stowe Mountain Auto Tollhouse and paid our fee, which was $19.95. Naturally, everyone paid with a $20 bill, meaning the poor guy had to give back a nickel every time along with the brochures, the pass and a neat CD-DVD of the Stowe history. This begged the question: why don't they charge an even $20? From here it's a steep 5 miles and about 2,500 feet of gain to the upper parking area - a steady 12-15% grade. The road is paved for just the first quarter-mile then graded dirt the rest of the way. Our tiny Chevy Cobalt passenger vehicle did just fine going up the road, and it took us about 30 minutes to get to the very top parking area. For the faint-of-heart, there are some parts where the drop-offs are large and intimidating. Curiously, about half-way up there's a small non-denominational chapel that apparently has services every day about 2 p.m. We arrived at the top probably a bit before 11 a.m. in beautiful, dry and very comfortable weather. For more info about the toll road, check The Stowe Mountain website for fees and conditions.
After a few minutes of getting ready we started our hike to the top, which stood out to our north, an attractive granite summit sheathed in forest and brush. The trail starts from near the informational center at the parking area, and enters into a glade of mid-sized trees. Where the ground is perpetually muddy (and to protect the flora), there are wooden plank boardwalks to obviate the muck. The route passed through a few of these boardwalk areas and onto open rocky balds where the route was blazed in simple white stripes. Shortly the trail leads to a small knob where the peak is once again in view.
After this knob, the trail does become a bit more steep and rocky. Beth was taking it slow and carefully, still in pain and recovering from our big Blue Mountains hike from three days earlier. Her motivation was strong, and she moved forward with great intensity. In some parts, the 'suggested' trail came rather close to some rocky cliffs and drop-offs. However, the danger of falling off wasn't great, and the views were brilliant. The route generally makes a steady straight-shot to the summit. As we got closer we had to negotiate a narrow walk between some rocks and a moderate slope to get to the very top. Did I mention this is a popular hike among locals and tourists? There must have been 40 people milling about the summit, and a steady stream of new arrivals and people heading back down. It took us a bit over an hour to make the top, where we had a nice local fellow shoot our photo and tell us about the local points of interest. Given our unexpectedly sunny, clear and dry day, we had sharp, well-defined views of distant ranges off on all horizons. To the west were the Adirondacks in New York State, while New Hampshire's Mount Washington was the obvious big peak off on the east horizon. The guy said that the low mesa-like ridges to the north were in Quebec, Canada. However, looking south we were unable to see into Massachusetts... Even so, it was quite fun to be able to look into two different states and another country from one position! Despite the high number of people, we thoroughly enjoyed our time on the summit, and didn't feel like we were 'missing out' on a true wilderness experience. Frankly, anyone willing to hike to a highpoint must have some shred of coolness about them! The guy was real cool and obviously knew his peaks. It's neat to meet someone like that who can fill you in on the details when you're playing the tourist.
Now, there's another county highpoint just a quarter-mile north along the ridge which I wanted to bag, so I left Beth on the summit (at her request) and went on my way. However, the trail here drops very steeply down some iffy rock faces that looked like good class-3 all the way down. Given my short time window (I promised 30 minutes out and back; that wasn't going to happen as I could see), I canceled the bid and returned to Beth. From the top, after nearly 45 minutes total time there, we made the easy walk back to our car; our total time on the hike running about three hours. The drive down went well, but even in the lowest gear our Cobalt still wanted to speed down the road. I had no choice in many cases but to ride the brakes. We had to scoot by people going up, and often with very little passing room. A wide vehicle such as a Hummer wouldn't make it; ironically they may not be allowed on this road! Just the same, it seems most people in Vermont drive Subaru Outbacks (like Beth's). We drove back into Burlington and treated ourselves to a lunch at Friendly's. Surprisingly the hike took a lot out of us and we were pretty beat afterwards. Still, a great hike and thoroughly enjoyable views. This was my 45th state highpoint, and Beth's 5th.
A day after our hike up Mount Mansfield we started our drive south to Bennington, in the southern part of the state. The great weather we had the previous day was now a little more mixed, with clouds, a breeze and the threat of rain. Still, the weather was cool and not too humid. On the agenda today were two highpoints - both fairly high and prominent peaks - that had easy access via gondola or road. Yes, were planned on being lazy! First up was Killington Peak, site of another of Vermont's well-known ski resorts. Beth had been here back in her college days. We drove to the end of the road to the big lodge at the base of the gondolas and ski runs. Beth was battling a migraine and decided to skip the ride, but she gave me her blessings to go up to the top and tag it. I bought a ticket ($14) and got right into a gondola - no waiting! The big draw here is the bike paths. People take their bikes to the top on the gondola, then ride them down the network of roads and trails all the way to the bottom. Me, I just wanted to tag the top. The ride to the top takes 8 minutes, and from there, a trail (trail J) winds about 40 vertical feet and 200 horizontal feet to the sloping, rocky granite summit. The hike - in my sandals - took about 5 minutes. An English couple was there and they kindly took a shot of me. The clouds were blowing through pretty fast and the views were obscured by the clouds and hazy moisture. I didn't stick around long, hiked back down to the gondola and rode down. Believe it or not, the whole round trip took less than 30 minutes! Beth was reading her book back at the car and was surprised to see me come back so quickly. We continued south along US-7 for our next objective...
It was about another hour of casual driving as we approached Equinox Peak, another highpeaks accessible by a toll road. In this case, it's privately owned and managed. We found the tollhouse easy enough and paid the $10 fee, and started our way up the mountain. Similar to the Stowe Road from yesterday, the road to the top of Equinox gains steeply, this time a little over 3,000 feet in about 5.5 miles. But the road is paved all the way. Again, our Cobalt went right up to the top with no difficulties, taking us about 30 minutes. Nearer the top the road comes into the open along a narrow saddle and gives some very nice views of the peak and of the valleys below. We rolled into the top parking area and walked around. The highpoint seemed to be a gentle mound about 50 feet off the road back toward some communications towers. We both stood on the mound, then went over to check out the interesting building at the summit.
The building seems to have been an old inn of some sort. The wall around the parking area is marble and cut very skillfully, and it seems that at one time this was a high-end destination for the locals. A nearby sign (left photo) gave us some sense of history of the area, but didn't really explain the building. We then walked to the building. It's in slight disrepair: some siding has blown off here and there, but for the most part looks pretty good. The windows are all in good shape, and looking into some of the rooms it seems to be mostly empty, used for some storage. Curiously, the 'main' room was open and accessible. I peeked in. It had a number of tables and chairs, all set very nicely, and some hutches holding some china against the walls, again all intact and very nice looking. Obviously someone takes care of the place. Maybe it's still used as an inn - although I doubt it. The main room had a musty smell to it. The door swung open but no one seemed to be around at all. Kind of creepy actually. We walked the perimeter of the building but saw no one. The sign mentioned the Carthusian religious order. Maybe they keep the building up in some bare sense of the word. Who knows - we surely don't.
We left after a few minutes, taking the downhills as slow as possible, then grabbed our hotel room in Bennington. A nice day of driving and easy highpointing in the books. Tomorrow: the Massachusetts state highpoint and another go at the Fairfield (CT) county highpoint, plus lots of driving.
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(c) 2006 Scott Surgent. For entertainment purposes only. This report is not meant to replace maps, compass, gps and other common sense hiking/navigation items. Neither I nor the webhost can be held responsible for unfortunate situations that may arise based on these trip reports. Conditions (physical and legal) change over time! Some of these hikes are major mountaineering or backpacking endeavors that require skill, proper gear, proper fitness and general experience. |