I’d like to say my last section of the Long Trail was all sun and easy trail.
I’d be lying.
It rained. Hard. The trail was a muddy mess, and I gave up trying to avoid the mud. I rock-hopped across mud when I could and slogged through when I couldn’t.
I scrambled up steep, wet rock slabs, and butt-slid down others.
Appalachian Trail thru-hikers know Vermont as Vermud, but they only know the half of it. Southern Vermont, where the AT and LT run together for about 100 miles, can be muddy but is a relatively easy trail.
It’s north of Maine Junction where the 272-mile Long Trail branches off from the AT that the trail gets wilder and steeper. Four of Vermont’s 5 4,000-footers—Mansfield, Camel’s Hump, Ellen, and Abraham—are in northern Vermont.
And that’s where I finished my last section hike of the LT, 10 years after I began piecing it together.
It wasn’t a very focused effort. I’d hike a section one year, then skip to New Hampshire or Maine the following year to hike another trail.
And when it came down to completing the final section, which included the challenging rock face of Mount Mansfield’s Forehead, I waffled a lot. Navigating the Forehead meant crawling on all fours on the edge of an abyss, I read online. It wasn’t that bad, I also read.
Ultimately, I went for it. Johnson to Bolton, southbound over what I consider the steepest, rockiest, most challenging section of the trail.
Along the way are Whiteface Mountain, Madonna Peak, Mansfield, Bolton Mountain, and numerous other tree-enclosed peaks. Wooden ladders hug steep sections. Or hikers cling to cracks and trailside trees to navigate vertical rock slabs.
And then there’s the Forehead on the south side of Mansfield. It truly is on the edge of an abyss, and requires navigating a rock ledge tucked under an overhanging slab
I dropped my pack onto a shelf about 10 feet below and slid down the rock ledge on my stomach, not looking over the side into thin air.
A few feet later came a similar descent, although this time there were tree roots to hold onto.
And with that, I was through the worst. I fairly glided into camp several miles farther on.
A Trail Steeped in History
The LT, laid out from 1910 to 1930 and considered the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the US, has earned its place in hiking lore.
The summit of Stratton Mountain is considered where Benton MacKaye conceived of the Appalachian Trail.
And women played a role early on in the Green Mountain Club, which oversees and protects the trail. Shelters are named after Emily Proctor, who donated money to help build shelters in 1914, and Lula Tye, who was the club’s corresponding secretary for decades beginning in 1926.
But it wasn’t until 1969 that Shirley Strong was elected first woman president of the club. Three women have been president since then: Marty Lawthers (2000-2003); Marge Fish (2009-2012); and the late Jean Haigh (2012-2015).
Like other hiking trails nationwide, the LT is seeing a boom in hikers. When I first hiked part of the LT in 1975 during a southbound Appalachian Trail hike through New England, my trail partner and I didn’t see anyone else in early October. On later section hikes in the 2010s during mid-October I saw just a few thru-hikers.
On the first three days of my final section hike going SOBO in late September 2021 I saw at least a dozen NOBOs each day. They told me there were plenty of SOBOs ahead of me.
The Green Mountain Club registered a record 555 End-to-Enders—LT thru-hikers—ages 7 to 80 in 2020, an increase attributed to more people getting outdoors during the pandemic.
With the increase in hikers come challenges for the trail, which the GMC is meeting with its $4 million Long Trail Legacy Campaign targeted at improving the northern trail, building a Green Mountain Club headquarters for year-round visitors, and protecting trail sections that cross private land.
Encounters Along the Way
Some of the people I met during my hike left a lasting impression. There was the woman who shuttled me to a trailhead about 8 years ago, and shared that she was dying of cancer. She was continuing on to see a friend for one last time after dropping me off.
When I walked through the LT/AT section of white rocks stacked in intricate patterns, a shrine made by hikers who have passed through, I stacked some rocks and said a prayer for her.
I am happy to see online that she is alive today.
Then there was the young woman who arrived at a shelter I was in just as it was getting dark on a rainy night.
I asked if she was staying, but she said she had to speed up her hike to attend a friend’s wedding. I hoped that was the truth, and not that she feared staying alone in a shelter with some random old guy.
The next day, worried father that I am, I watched for her tracks in the muddy trail to satisfy myself that she made it to the next shelter in the dark.
Challenges and Beauty
The Forehead is just one of the trail’s challenges. North of Maine Junction hikers clamber up and down ladders and metal bars attached to rock faces. Perhaps the best-known section is Ladder Ravine, where NOBO hikers descend a mossy rock face while holding onto a rope before transitioning to an aluminum ladder to reach the ravine’s bottom. SOBO hikers do the reverse.
Blazes can be sparse. I mistakenly followed a stream a short way downhill because, after all, the trail is often a stream of water.
The trail passes over ski areas that offer tantalizing mountaintop warming huts for sleeping at night. Stark’s Nest atop the Mad River Glen ski area is a favorite overnight spot, but I passed the hut midday so did not stop. On my final section I stayed in the ski area warming hut atop Madonna Peak and listened all night as the wind shook the door and roof.
Stratton, Griffith, and Little Rock ponds are gems of the southern trail, although some hikers skip staying there because of the caretaker fee.
I’ve stayed at all of them: At Stratton Pond when the still water reflected the night stars like a mirror ; at Little Rock Pond, where my son, daughter, and I played cards at the table inside the shelter while rain fell outside; and at Griffith Lake, where we tended a fire by the lakeside while talking with other campers drawn to the fire.
I watched the sunset from Roundtop Shelter, but was not so lucky with good weather at other shelters with views. The four-sided Jay Camp kept me dry while a torrential rain during the night flooded the surrounding woods.
Shelters and lodges are spaced about 10 miles apart, and I stayed only at shelters or established campsites. Dispersed camping is difficult on the northern Long Trail because of the terrain and the mix of federal, state, and private land, each with different guidelines for camping. The southern trail passes mainly through the Green Mountain National Forest and dispersed camping is easier.
Resupply is easy, with Vermonters willing to give hikers rides in and out of town in most sections. Waterbury can be a long, tough hitch, but the Vermont craft beer at restaurants in town is superb. Waitsfield is a good town stop, and home to Lawson’s Finest Liquids.
Rutland, Bennington, Manchester, and Johnson are also resupply towns with overnight options.
Vermont has an excellent bus system that runs along Route 7 west of the trail, and I used it as part of a shuttle from Middlebury Gap to Rutland to Killington. During that trip I talked with a young man who was amazed that I was hiking a trail in the mountains. And wasn’t I afraid of bears? he wanted to know.
Yes, there are bears, and they have become increasingly aggressive in the south. Most shelters and campsites south of Killington—Vermont’s fifth 4,000-footer—have bear boxes, but they are less frequent north of Killington. When I started the trail I hung food from mouse-deterrent strings inside shelters, a practice the GMC is working to stop. Now I PCT hang my food 12 feet off the ground and 6 feet from a tree.
Saying Goodbye
My last day on trail at Buchanan Shelter I met four hikers who like me were on their final section of an End-to-End. There was talk among them about bourbon one of them had and staying up until an audacious 7:30 by the fire. We were in bed by 6.
Because that’s what the Long Trail does to you.
For more on how to hike the Long Trail, read Backpacking Routes co-founder Jeff Garmire’s trail profile here. Garmire briefly held the LT’s self-supported Fastest Known Time, completing the trail in 5 days, 23 hours, and 48 minutes.
