I walked into Vermont on June 14th. At this point in my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, I was thriving. I was hiking with a super fun group, moving along the trail very well and feeling great mentally.
Vermud In The Green Tunnel
On June 14th, we woke up at the Williamstown motel to some rain in the morning, and began walking into Vermont. Vermont is known for its muddiness, and, particularly during our first day in the state, I really felt that. Perhaps it was because we walked into Vermont on a rainy day, but there was some serious mud we trampled through.
Upon entering Vermont, we came to the Vermont Long Trail. The LT is a trail that runs the entire length of Vermont from Massachusetts to Canada. The AT runs concurrent with it for 105 miles.
The Vermont Long Trail runs concurrent with the Appalachian Trail.
It’s a pretty 105 miles, extremely green. I learned why they call Vermont the Green State and why the mountains we were now traversing were called the Green Mountains. When people talk about the AT, one of the big complaints is that it’s a “green tunnel.” In other words, people say that instead of getting lots of great views overlooking landscapes, the heavy greenery blocks your vision and all you see is a green tunnel. I hadn’t really experienced that thus far. I felt like there were plenty of views and I didn’t feel the claustrophobia many people talked about on the AT. Plus, I really enjoyed being surrounded by all that lush greenery.
That was until Vermont. It wasn’t overwhelming, but I definitely felt a little bit of what they were talking about with this green tunnel.
However, there were some breaks from this green tunnel after the first bit of the state. Atop Stratton Mountain, there was a really tall fire tower that had a spectacular view of the Green Mountains around us. The morning after we passed it, Clover and Homesick walked back up into it to watch the sunrise. I wasn’t about to wake up that early for it, but they said it was amazing.
In Vermont, the trail goes through New England’s ski country. That means we hiked over several dry ski mountains like Mount Bromley and Killington Peak (Stratton Mountain was also a ski mountain), which were all really nice and pretty.
I had a really fun hiking group at this point in my hike.
Around this time, Homesick and Scout had a couple friends who were vacationing nearby and wanted to join them for some miles. They kindly picked us up from the trail to resupply and grab a little treat. Their friends were super cool folks. We got ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s, and then returned to the trail.
Homesick and Scout slowed down a bunch to stay with their friends. It takes a bit to get up to the hiking fitness of a thru-hiker, so they naturally couldn’t do the mileage the rest of us were. That meant Clover and I jumped ahead with plans to reconnect with Homesick and Scout later.
Around the time the AT split off from the LT and veered east towards New Hampshire, a crazy heat wave came. It was brutal, and required us to drink lots of water, use tons of electrolyte mixes and to slow down a bit.
During this time, Clover and I stopped at a shelter where we ran into Pig Pen. Clover had never met Pig Pen at this point, and I had been running into her off-and-on since the Smoky Mountains. Pig Pen was the hiker I’d known the longest that I was still hiking around and Clover was probably the hiker I’d hiked with the most, so it was a cool crossover. Sweet Stuff had gotten off trail for a family vacation, so Pig Pen was now solo hiking.
At that shelter, we also met Star Girl. Star Girl was from Washington, DC, though she had plans to move to Florida to attend graduate school after her hike. She was doing a super long section hike. She started in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and was playing it by ear on how long she’d go. She’d done a crazy amount of miles already though.
The next day the four of us all ended up hiking to the Inn at the Long Trail, a cool hotel that caters to hikers and has a fun Irish pub inside it. The pub boasts that it was the first bar in Vermont to serve Guinness.
After we hiked out from the inn, it finally happened. I’d been looking my entire thru-hike. I saw a bear! It was a black bear of course–there are no grizzlies or other bears near the trail–which is safer and it was from a bit of a distance. The second it noticed me, it jumped over a log and scurried away. It was a super cool sight. Black bears are honestly just like big dogs, not really all that scary. At least that was my experience.
The Generosity Of Another Kind Stranger
Soon after all that, I entered New Hampshire, the penultimate state. The trail leading up to the Vermont-New Hampshire border contains what felt like the longest roadwalk of the entire trail. That roadwalk leads over the Connecticut River, at which point you enter Hanover, New Hampshire, which was our introduction into the state. Hanover is a really pretty town. It’s an Ivy League college town, the home of Dartmouth College, a really pretty campus.
An engraving marking the Vermont-New Hampshire line!
I enjoyed a burger and a beer in Hanover near the college, watching university students walk by. It was a super pretty town. Then I met up with a super nice lady named Wren. Wren was a trail angel who I’d been connected with by a lady I met at the Inn at Long Trail. She very kindly welcomed me into her home and allowed me to stay the night in her and her husband Jon’s guest bedroom. They were such nice folks, and they had super interesting stories.
Wren told me all about her writing. She had written for a number of magazines and newspapers, similar to my profession, so we bonded over that. She was also working on a memoir about her family that sounded super interesting. She’s also a teacher and said she taught at the high school where one of my favorite artists, a folk singer that has really exploded in popularity recently named Noah Kahan, went to high school, which was so crazy to me.
Jon told me about when he was in his twenties, he took what sounds like an amazing trip across the U.S. He hitchhiked and train hopped across the country. It was so much fun to hear his stories. He was also a doctor at a nearby hospital .
The next day, I bade them farewell and walked out of Hanover. Hanover is surrounded by beautiful forests. I reckon if you like the outdoors, Dartmouth College is an awesome place to go to school.
Early on in New Hampshire, I dealt with a really bad storm. It was the toughest storm I’d dealt with since I crossed Roan Mountain in Tennessee. It was a really bad storm. I cut that day short to hole up in a shelter and get out of the rain. On June 23, I spent the night at Hexacuba Shelter, and was preparing myself mentally to enter the White Mountains.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25673932/462754179_560996103109958_6880455562272353471_n.jpg "Meta suggests AI Northern Lights pics are as good as the real thing")