NH,VT & MASS- Part 4

Dates ........ Saturday Sept 23, 2000
Miles ........ 12.5 miles
From ........ VT - Little Rock Pond Shelter
To ............. Peru Peak Shelter
Weather ... Rain overnight; cool hi 40's-lo 50's, cloudy- overcast, rainy

Little Rock Pond, Big Branch Creek, Lake Brook, Griffith Lake

After last night's rain, the trail was in bad shape - wet and muddy in most places. From the shelter I hiked to Little Rock Pond and visited the brand new Lula Tye Shelter, then along little Black Branch Brook and upstream along Big Branch to the shelter there where I met a hiker and his dog. Big branch is a beautiful rock and boulder strewn rushing stream. I crossed the suspension bridge - a most interesting piece of work itself - and decided to take the Old Job Trail along Lake Brook up to Griffith Lake.

Lake Brook along the old AT - now called the Old Job Trail.

I was rewarded for this by having a wider, drier but somewhat longer trail that ran along the most beautiful mountain stream for almost its entire length. As I hiked all I could hear was rushing water. Oh, it was beautiful beyond description. It was so beautiful that it lifted my spirits on this gloomy day. It was a very gradual but steady climb in elevation along the stream to Griffith Lake, where it was so boggy and muddy that most of the trail was on bog bridges (thank you!). I met some day hikers slogging about, hoping to get some early fall foliage pictures and avoid the crowds. Well, they were definitely accomplishing the latter. Bog bridging, incidentally, is not installed to save hikers feet or boots, it is installed to prevent erosion and wear on sensitive areas of the trail.

Griffith Lake showing early fall colors in Vermont.

The Peru Peak Shelter was another brand new shelter with no toilet paper in its privy and a $5.00 fee for the privilege of hiking to and using it. I arrived there about 1:00 PM and was going to lunch and move on to Bromley mountain, another 7 or so miles, where it was rumored that there was a warming hut on top of the ski center complete with microwave, running water, gas heat and a telephone. Nothing was said of this in my guidebook or the map so it was a bit of a gamble. The next shelter beyond Bromley was another 9 miles - I was not up to that - a total of 25 miles of mud, rock and a couple of mountains over 3000 feet high. No way.

I ate lunch, saddled up and started out when the skies opened up in a big way. I went back to the shelter to wait out the downpour. It rained hard for over an hour, then became a steady drizzle for another hour or so. I decided to stay there since I was a day ahead of schedule. I've had all the hiking in the rain that I need this year, thank you. A senior hiker, a Lithuanian named Pappy, Geoff, a hiker trying out some new gear, and Graylock came along. Shortly afterward the caretaker came for her money and brought a young female hiker to stay with us. A nice girl, the rude comments about fantasies of intimacy with the caretaker (caretakers are all young and pretty, somehow) were mercifully avoided. The trail talk was lively, with Geoff asking many questions about gear and technique and Pappy and I all too eager to give a willing ear the advice.

Pappy cooked me up some tea water, we all cooked and ate our suppers, after which Graylock lit up a joint and I insisted he take it outside. That ruffled his feathers a bit. It rained on and off all evening and overnight. It'll be another soggy day tomorrow.