Hot, humid starting weekend: North Adams, MA to Bennington, VT

Day 1: 7/20: Pine Cobble Rd, North Adams, MA to Congdon Shelter (12.9 miles)

Steve, Carrie and I left the trailhead ~8:15am. The morning was super muggy. Boston today was >100F and on the trail it was projected to be about 90F. We were worried about the heat and the fact that today was Carrie and Steve’s first day of real backpacking with all their new gear for Alaska next month. After probably 30-45minutes, I stripped off my T-shirt, slathered on bug spray and sunscreen and hiked in my sports bra to stay cooler. Even though it was hot, we made it to the VT in the book time (30 min/mile + 30 min for each 1000ft of elevation gain). It cooled off a bit as we got higher up and there was a breeze, or at least it felt better.

Starting out at Pine Cobble Rd trail head with Carrie & Steve

Today was a big day. We slowed down a bit between the VT/MA line and Seth Warner Shelter (& we stopped for lunch). We saw our first AT thru hiker NoBo at the MA/VT line. I kept thinking we would stop before Congdon Shelter and camp in the woods, but Steve and Carrie kept wanting to keep going! Some highlights of the day:

-        Breeze under power lines!

-        A couple beautiful beaver ponds

-        A MOOSE!!!!! She was cooling off in a beaver pond a fair bit away. My first ever sighting!!

-        A bunch of snakes curled up on boardwalks (which I learned are called puncheon). Carrie overcame her fear to lead us through as they slithered into the water

-        A green headed frog that jumped between my legs as I walked

We made it to Congdon around 7pm. It started to rain at Congdon, but it started after we’d set up and were eating dinner. I drank so much water today! 2 Nalgenes + 2.5 Camelpaks = 7 liters of water! Also, my back is surprisingly what is bugging me the most physically: left shoulder blade area. :(

Day 2: 7/21: Condgon Shelter to Melville Nauheim (5.9 miles)

I slept poorly last night, probably because it was the first night out. I woke up at 6:30 to go to the privy and didn’t think I’d fall asleep again. But, I laid down and didn’t wake up again until 8:30! Steve and Carrie got up a bit later and we were all slow to get going. We didn’t leave until 11:00am! Probably my latest backpacking start ever. Fortunately, we have a short day.

At lunch, we had a nice view of Mt. Anthony to the SW and Bennington with a huge obelisk monument for an American Revolution Battle there. We met an LT NoBo hiker (Neil) at the viewpoint, with his dog (Slater). Last night we met another LT NoBo, a woman named Grey. Grey lives in VT and has been working as a Domino’s late night driver for the past 2 years. Neil is an arborist in MA.

We had a steep descent to Rt. 9 where we found our first trail magic - a bag of fruit and snacks at the trailhead. I repacked my bag at Steve and Carrie’s car, taking a few things from them like bug spray and hand sanitizer and leaving some food with them. Then another trail magician came! I got a much-appreciated Gatorade, which I downed swiftly. It was so delicious! I’ve been sweating a ton in the heat, so I appreciated the electrolytes.

I bid adieu to Steve and Carrie and headed off. I crossed a lovely wide VT stream on a great bride and then made the biggest climb yet up to Melville Nauheim shelter. There was a cool rock formation called Split Rock, a giant boulder split in two that the trail went through.

Neil, Grey and I are all staying at the shelter, with an AT thru hiker called Whiskey Peach. All friendly. I read a sign about the new recommended way to hang bear bags (PCT hang), so the bear bag isn’t tied to a tree trunk, just the branch it is over and Whiskey Peach helped me hang my first bear bag.

I’m headed to bed and it’s only 8pm and still light out! (I might read for a bit)

My long-standing dream to hike the VT Long Trail (LT)

I'm writing this blog after the conclusion of my trip, as that's the only practical way to do it! There's not internet on the trail and part of the point of doing the hike is to get away from technology. However, since I took the time to type up my journal for the Green Mountain Club so that I can get my End-to-Ender's patch from the Green Mountain Club, and be logged in their record book, I figured I'd add some pictures and turn it into a blog. Maybe some of you will be curious enough about my trip to read it. And if not, at least I'll have it for my future reference and enjoyment. ;)

Before I get into my experience on the trek, let me give  bit of background about my trip: I learned about the Long Trail (LT) and the Appalachian Trail (AT) when I was a kid at summer camp in Vermont. My first backpacking trip was a 5-day trek through the Presidentials of the White Mountains in New Hampshire when I was 11 (a trip usually reserved for 14-15 year olds, but I guess my pleas to go were persuasive). I loved it and I decided that someday, I wanted to hike the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail (AT) from Georgia to Maine and the Long Trail spanning the full north-south length of Vermont. Now, I’m in my 30s and taking 4-6 months off to hike the AT isn’t as desirable as it was when I was a kid (at least not for now). Instead, I decided that I wanted to hike the Long Trail in Vermont when I finished graduate school last summer...but then I got shin splints and couldn’t go. So this year, even though the timing was suboptimal from a professional standpoint, I decided to make the dream a reality and hike the Long Trail.

My trip started on the hottest day of the summer - that day when it was over 100 degrees in Boston and the humidity was about 100%. I hiked the first weekend with two friends who had never been backpacking before and were preparing for a 10-day trek in Alaska. I got a grant from the MIT outing club (MITOC) to support some of my expenses (I'm a community member of the club). MITOC's goal is to get folks into the outdoors and having new experiences, so was fitting that my MITOC-supported trip started with sharing my love of backpacking with new folks and answering their questions about living in the woods. 

Over the course of 25 days, I hiked the LT, the country’s oldest long distance hiking trail, constructed from 1910-1930 by the Green Mountain Club. The trail spans 273 miles, from the MA-VT border in Williamstown, MA to the VT-Canada border in North Troy, VT, over the peaks of the Green Mountains. It inspired the creation of the AT, which was completed 7 years later.

My trip has 5 phases in my mind: (1) the hot, humid starting weekend when my 2 newbie friends joined me from MA to Bennington, VT; (2) the super social LT/AT section, ~100 miles from MA to Rutland when the two trails are the same and there were a ton of AT thru hikers entering into their last 500 miles going north; (3) the solitary middle section from Rutland to Lincoln Gap where I hiked alone for about a week, on much less well-maintained trails, saw lots of wildlife and learned how much I love being alone in the woods; (4) the BEAUTIFUL Lincoln Gap to Smugglers Notch section, with the best views in short succession and the steepest, rockiest climbs, where my husband joined me, and finally; (5) the final 65 mile stretch from Smugglers Notch to Journey’s End, with more lovely views, though mostly tamer trails, much of which I hiked with a friend who did the LT ~5 years ago herself.  

This blog is organized by those sections. (If you want to read a shorter reflection on my trip, feel free to check out the 2-page trip report I wrote, with a few pictures, for MITOC here.)