Greetings from Vermont’s Long Trail!

As many of you know, I have recently taken on the challenge of hiking Vermont’s Long Trail end-to-end. The Long Trail follows the ridgeline of the Green Mountains in Vermont from the Massachusetts border in the South to the Canadian Border in the North. The Long Trail was our country’s first long distance hiking trail – work began on constructing this hiking path in 1910. It was this Vermont trail that inspired the creation of the significantly longer and more well-known Appalachian Trail. The long trail is 273 miles long, and I hope to hike it’s entire length in just over three weeks.

Me with my mom Candy near a beaver pond on the Long Trail.

I am hiking this trail with my mother, who has been longing for an adventure of this caliber for many years, and now finally has the time to make her dream a reality. Different people have many different reasons for embarking on a trek of this nature, and in our case it is certainly fair to say that there is a very strong emotional motivation. The passing of my father this past fall has been very difficult for my entire family, and I hope that this trip will serve as a transition into a new stage of our lives.

The official start of the Long Trail.

Our Long Trail hike began in Williamstown, Massachusetts, just south of the Vermont border, where my sister and her husband dropped us off at the trailhead. This is before the official start of the Long Trail – we had to hike 4 miles to reach the border where the trail begins. Rain had been threatening all day and it was quite cold, but we started off hoping that the clouds would soon break. We did get a few brief glimpses of sunlight, but the majority of the hiking that first day was done in the rain. We slogged through the mud and waded through streams, stopping to snap a few photos at the Vermont border, and were happy to turn in at the Long Trail’s Southernmost lean-to shelter where a group of hikers had already gathered to stay out of the rain.

 

Snow on the trail.

The next two days were sunny and beautiful, but we could see the evidence of the previous days’ harsh weather. Once we reached higher elevations several inchs of snow covered the ground. We made good time these next couple days as we began to acclimate to our new lifestyle. A large part of the draw of long distance hiking is the utter simplicity of it. With each day you have only one simple goal in mind, traveling from point A to point B on foot (while feeding yourself enough to make such a feat possible!). We found that with each passing day we were able to cover a few extra miles as our legs got into shape, and by the 5th and final day of this first trip we would cover almost 16 miles!

Sunset along the Long Trail.

Part of the joy of this trip for me is being back in the vast decidous forests of the Northeast during songbird breeding season, and the morning choruses of birdsong have been spectacular. Black-throated Green and Black-throated Blue Warblers, American Redstarts, Yellow Warblers, Chestnut-sided Warblers and Blackpoll Warblers are just a few of the most common songs that I’ve been hearing.

Beautiful and unique flora and fauna abound throughout the Long Trail.

For me, there are many memories along this section of the Long Trail. It overlaps the Appalachian Trail through the southern part of the state and in 2003 I completed a 600 mile section hike of the AT through this area. It is amazing the details that I remember from that trip 10 years ago, but also how different the journey is this time through. At the moment we are resting our tired feet in the small town of Manchester and re-supplying for our next leg of the journey. Stay tuned, as I hope to provide additional updates as we stop through towns along the way. No promises though, as some of the mountain towns in Northern Vermont are quite small and likely without sufficient accomodations for blogging!

There is no shortage of water along the trail!