Scott's
cousin Miki lives in Burlington, VT along with his girlfriend Bridget.
How long they'll stay there is up in the air. They are talking about
moving to San Francisco, CA. Because of this we chose to make Mt. Mansfield
in Vermont our sixth highpoint. We
didn't have much time to spend since Chris was going back to school
in August, and Scott didn't have very much vacation time from work.
So we chose to make this a three-day trip. We knew it was going to be
difficult since Burlington is a ten-hour drive from Cleveland, but we
chose to sacrifice our sleep to make this trip possible.
We
arrived in Burlington just before noon on Saturday. Less than 15 minutes
after our arrival, Miki asked if we wanted to go sailing on Lake Champlain.
Despite how physically drained we were from being in the car for ten
hours, we chose to take advantage of this opportunity. This side trip
proved to be one of our most exciting excursions yet. Neither of us
had sailed before. The serenity of sailing on
Lake Champlain in early August is simply indescribable. Thanks Mik!
With Mt. Mansfield looming
in the distance, we often stopped and pondered our upcoming challenge.
Our
dinner that night was no less thrilling. We chose a Japanese steak house
called Koto where Chris was able
to try sushi for the first time. Needless to say that was probably the
last time he'll ever eat it.
We
woke up Sunday at around 9:30am. This was a little later than we had
hoped for. By the time we pulled ourselves together and got on the road
it was 10:30am. After driving nearly an hour, we arrived at Underhill
State Park. Once inside the park we were quite surprised to see how
many cars were in the parking lot. Since it was such a beautiful day,
obviously others wanted to take advantage of the weather. Ironically,
back in Cleveland, the national weather reports were calling for inclement
weather in the Burlington area. Our first stop was at the ranger
station. Here we registered to hike and paid our $2.00 registration
fee. We then began our summit attempt.
Miki
has been coming to the Burlington area since he was about six years
old. He attended Camp
Holy Cross-where throughout the years he has climbed Mt. Mansfield
somewhere around 20 times. Considering his experience, we let him make
the decisions on which trails to take. He chose Sunset
Ridge Trail for our ascent.
Sunset
Ridge Trail is close to 1.0 mile from the ranger's station. It also
is the longest route up the mountain from our starting point. From the
trailhead it is 2.2 miles to the summit. It's probably the most popular
route since we passed dozens of people on our climb. A few of whom had
brought their dogs and even some babies. We were both a little startled
to see people hiking with infants on their backs. The conditions were
quite damp and there are many steep areas on this trail. Neither of
us thought that these conditions were conducive to hiking with such
a responsibility on one's back.
About
2/3 of the way up, we came to the treeline. More than once we stopped
in awe of the beauty that was before us. Just before we left the tundra
we were greeted by a sign:
From
what we learned, there is an arctic moss that grows in only two places
on earth. One is in Alaska and the other is here on Mt. Mansfield. We
took heed of the sign and watched our step for the remainder of our
trip.
Soon
thereafter we reached the summit. Since this is an arctic-alpine zone
the change in temperature was very apparent. We had built up a little
sweat on the way up and with the cold winds blowing we were forced to
put on our jackets.
There
we were, on top of Vermont, and what a view it was. We could see for
many miles in all directions. To
the east we gazed upon the framework to Stowe
Ski Resort. To the south we saw the other
features of Mt. Mansfield ("the forehead" and "the nose") and Camel's
Hump, Mansfield's nearby 4000 foot brother. Lake Champlain was clear
to the west, as were the mountains of eastern
New York.
If
there was a negative point to being on the summit it would have to be
the wasps. We were
told that recently this particular species of wasp had hatched and as
a result they were everywhere.
We
stayed on the summit for about 40 minutes. We finished up some final
photo ops and we were off again.
Miki
wanted to take Halfway House Trail back
down the
mountain. Halfway House is 0.9 miles from the highpoint. The most direct
route to the trail is to take Long Trail*. We had bought a trail map
at the ranger's station. While on the summit we were looking at the
map and noticed a trail called Subway. Since we were at 4000ft+ we were
intrigued at the subterranean reference the name implied. We all decided
to take a look at the trail. It led us to a ladder
leading down into a crevasse. The crevasse
was very damp and considerably cooler. We took the trail until we came
to a large open-faced rock. Here we all sat down and relished in the
moment. The view was spectacular. We highly
recommend this route to everyone. We sat there for about 15 minutes
and then retraced our steps back to Long Trail.
Halfway
House Trail caught us by surprise. This trail was extremely steep and
happened to be even damper than Sunset
Ridge. The times when this became a problem were when we came upon large
open-faced sections of rock. Since the rocks were so slick we were forced
to slide down a few of them on our butts. This was definitely a less
traveled route than Sunset Ridge. We didn't pass a soul. Halfway House
is only 0.9 miles long but since it was a more technical route it still
took us about 1½ hours.
After
about a 6 hour round-trip we finally made it back to our car. This was
probably our most rewarding highpoint to date because it was our first
true hike.
6 down, 44 highpoints to go.
*
Long Trail
is a 265-mile trail, which begins at the Vermont/Massachusetts border
and ends at the Vermont/Canada border.
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