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.)