NH,VT & MASS- Part 4

Dates ........ Thursday Sept 21, 2000
Miles ........ 15.7 miles
From ........ VT Inn at Long Trail, US4, Sherburne Pass
To ............. Clarendon Shelter
Weather ... Gusty wind and rain AM, 40-50's day, windy, cool. damp

Pico (3957') and Killington (4235') Peaks, VT's Coolidge range,

The morning started out stormy with gloomy weather and a forecast for more of the same. I did not relish the prospect of starting out wet. I had a nice hearty breakfast at the inn and nursed some coffee until it cleared somewhat then donned my raingear and hiked 1.5 miles down Rt. 4 to the post office. There I got the absolute unfriendliest service - downright most un-helpful service - that I have ever gotten from any post office (and I even looked and smelled decent!). I mailed my parcel back and got a ride back to the inn from a local resident headed that way.

The AT had just been relocated west of Sherburne Pass but I took the old AT, now called the Sherburne Pass Trail. It is a direct route up Pico Mountain, steeper, but considerably shorter and much more convenient to my resupply and lodging. It links up with the new AT just past Pico Peak's summit. On the way up there were two huge sinkholes; one right on the trail that had evidently swallowed up a pole meant to mark its hazard and the other a few feet away where an entire stream disappeared and ran beneath the trail. At one point near the summit, the hiking trail joins the ski trail and I looked back into the valley and could see the inn and the area I hiked yesterday.

Looking down Pico Peak ski trail to Sherburne Pass, Vermont.

Pico Camp was an interesting porcupine eaten little shack on the mountain with bunks. It had a nice piped spring where I took water and drank it untreated. The view was great but it was cold and windy so I moved on quickly. From Pico it was a saddle and traverse to Killington and the stone and log Cooper Lodge on its summit.

It never warmed up during the day - in fact, it got cooler. Most of the day was in the 40's and that was OK for hiking as long as I kept moving. The trail was wet, muddy and slippery, but not real rocky.

The last few miles to the shelter seemed to take forever. I was traveling more or less with Graylock, whom I met at the inn. He was behind me, hiking the long Trail (LT), not able to keep my pace. He was 20 years younger than I but hiked without sticks. It was getting dark fast as I approached and finally found the airport beacon, its light not yet on. At the stream crossing there were no trail markers to the shelter. I found it only because I knew from the guidebook where to turn off the trail.

At the shelter was Brian, a college age hiker was preparing his dinner. It turned dark and Graylock was still out there somewhere. I put a sign at the trail crossing and returned to the shelter. Forty minutes later Graylock caught up. The three of us chatted, ate supper and turned in before 9 PM so the shelter mice could get an early start running all over us. Barred owls called to one another in the night.