2024

Today we hiked 26.7 miles and made it to camp before 7PM.  I slept horribly last night. I really have no idea why, but I would just wake up every 20 minutes and be awake for an hour or so. Probably in total I got less than 2 hours of sleep. Oh well.  We woke up around 6 and didn’t have many views on top of our mountain. We embarked into a thick fog at 7:30.  We mainly just walked through thick green forests for most of the day. If I had to pick a section of VT to have fog for, this section would have been it. We really didn’t miss a ton of views or anything. I’m very grateful that we had such good weather for the beautiful trail behind us.  We missed a couple small views today, like a lake and an overlook through the trees.  We had a boardwalk section that kept us out of the mud, then hiked up Baker Peak. The summit would have had nice views but we just had fog and high winds. We didn’t hang out for very long. We had hiked around 11 miles by noon and stopped for...

Today we had incredible views, perfect weather, and one of the coolest sunsets I’ve ever seen.   Last night we had some unexpected rain last night which actually helped me sleep. We also had some field mice running around outside our tents which did not help me sleep. Overall I slept very well which was deeply needed.  We woke up around 6:40 and ate breakfast in our tents to avoid the mosquitoes. We started hiking just before 8. For most of the morning we climbed Stratton Mountain, a famous ski mountain, but also a popular hiking spot. Before the steep part of the ascent we crossed a few streams and saw some yellow swallowtail butterflies hanging around some dandelions.  On the way up we had a pretty good view through the trees.  The top of the mountain had a very tall fire tower. This time we didn’t have to ignore any “Closed to Public” signs to reach the top.  The views from the tower were fantastic, probably some of the best on trail. We could see mountains i...

Today felt easier than yesterday even though we hiked 26 miles with a lot of elevation change. I slept horribly last night. I fell asleep quickly but couldn’t stay asleep for more than like a half hour at a time. My jerry rigged tent in the shelter setup helped keep the bugs off but may have contributed to my poor sleep.  We started hiking around 8 after delaying waking up until 6:45. We planned to hike either 23 miles or 26 miles depending on how the day went. We began the morning with a cool view of Bennington VT. We hiked around 8 miles before 11AM then stopped for lunch at Hell Hallow stream.  We started hiking again around 11:45. On the gradual ascent up Glastonbury Mountain we had occasional views but mostly hiked through very thick greenery.  Vermont has been very cool so far. The Green Mountain National Forest feels very remote, especially compared to the middle section of the trail through PA, NJ, CT, MA, and NY, which were much more developed. However, the remot...

Today we left Mass and entered Vermont. I didn’t sleep well last night, just had a hard time staying comfortable. I woke up around 6:30 and we started hiking around 7:45.  We began the morning by hiking up the highest point in Mass, Mt Greylock. On the way up we passed through subalpine climate, which is small hemlocks and softwoods, with very unique underbrush and a lot of mountain laurels. This section is the only subalpine zone in Mass.  Greylock is around 3500 feet tall and had the best views we’ve seen in weeks. Unfortunately the tower was closed and didn’t open at 9:30AM as listed.  After waiting a half hour for the tower to open we continued our hike by descending down into Williamstown MA for lunch and a resupply. We walked a half mile into town and bought a couple days of food from Stop and Shop. We then went and got a burger and charged our phones. We were back to hiking by 2. Our first landmark was the 1,600 mile mark.  We then hiked up to a ridge and had ...