The Long Trail At 100

Listening to the radio today, the guest remarked on the ruggedness of the Long Trail compared to many other footpaths. Here's a quote that captures this point.

25 years ago, I took a trip with three friends from Middlebury Gap northward. This mid-summer trip was the epitome of wet - it rained every single day, except for one glorious sunny day on which we laid out all of our wet gear on some rocks near the top of Mt. Ellen. I remember vividly one 50 yard section of trail near the top of one peak which was surrounded on either side by impenetrable brush, but was full of water up to mid-calf level. No choice but to slog through!

In any event, we lasted out a torrential downpour during the night at Montclair Glen Lodge with a bunch of other nice folks, and told many stories of various hiking experiences around the world (when the rain on the roof allowed us to be heard!) Of note were two tall, lanky, middle-aged brothers from New Zealand who had been many, many places, but they felt that the Long Trail was unique. As they said, "we've hiked all over the world, and Vermont is the only place on the planet where you hike uphill to get down off a mountain!" Yup!

Bill V.

I thru-hiked the Long Trail in 2006. The hike itself lasted 22 days and was the culmination of a dream I had fostered for over 20 years ever since I first learned of the Long Trail while working as a research assistant on Camel's Hump. As it is for many who thru-hike the trail, it was a life changing experience for myself. My family was very supportive, despite a 2 year old son who did not like seeing me go. While the wilderness experience of hiking the Long Trail will always remain with me, as will the friends and memories form that time, it was only more recently that I began to understand the true impact the hike had on me.

In May of 2010 I completed my Master of Education degree at the University of Vermont. My hike on the Long Trail served as the back bone to my graduate thesis in which I explored a concept I entitled "The Three Circles of Me." The circles included self, family and community. I found these regions of myself correlated to each of the three weeks I spent on the Long Trail and delved into each circle in greater detail through this lens. I chronicled much of my Long Trail hike and thesis on http://dannvdv.blogspot.com.

Currently, I am planning to thru-hike the Long Trail again, this time with my two children Kate and Rob. The hike is planned for summer of 2015.

Regards,

Dann Van Der Vliet
"Redtail" LT 2006

My sister Paula and I, now in our early 60's, began backpacking the Long Trail six years ago. Some time during that first trip (Lincoln Gap to Brandon Gap), we became inspired to become end-to-enders. Every year since, we have backpacked a portion of the trail and have now completed everything north of Route 140. We should be finished in two more years.

Paula had done a lot of backpacking before our first hike, mostly in Utah, but found that the Long Trail terrain was more challenging than anything she had ever done before. I was less experienced than Paula before that first trip and also found it very difficult. But we also discovered that there is something empowering and inspiring in accomplishing such a hike. It made us feel like wonder women! We also have found that camping at the shelters is an experience not to miss. There is something so peaceful about lying there on a shelter floor or bunk, feeling the night breeze and listening to the sounds of the woods. We have had many shelters to ourselves, but have also shared shelters with mostly very nice people. We had only one experience with a person at a shelter who made us nervous, and he was not a hiker but a local person who came up to the shelter in a motor vehicle. Fellow hikers tend to be peaceful and generous, in our experience.

It is interesting and a little puzzling to me that in all of our hiking, Paula and I have not seen any other women our age backpacking on the trail. Day hiking, yes, but not backpacking and camping. Until this year, we had not seen any other women of any age backpacking without men along. We shared a shelter this year with two women who were backpacking, but they were in their 30's, I would guess. We seem to be an anomaly of sorts. I'm not sure why that is.

When we finished our hike this year, Paula and I were talking about the feeling of restoration and strength that we get from our annual hikes. It is strange in a way that we should feel this way, as you would think that such a hike would be exhausting instead of restorative. But so it is, and we have both come to anticipate our hikes with eagerness. We will become end-to-enders!

Leanne from Sudbury, VT
(Paula from Seattle, Wa)

I have been enjoying Vermont's Long Trail for over 40 years as a hiker, a caretaker and as a Ranger-naturalist. I have always cherished the expansive, wilderness-like views that one gets from the numerous high peaks and ridgelines along the trail. The thought of many of these views being despoiled by industrial wind development is extremely sad. I think that anyone who holds dear any view of any ridgeline along the Long Trail ought to be paying attention to the powerful push by the wind industry to put 400+ foot machines along numerous mountains clearly visible from the Trail. I consider this type of development the greatest threat to the Long Trail experience as we have come to know and love it.

Heidi

Lowell

My son Aaron and I, hiking Smugglers Notch to Hazen’s Notch, realized that we had brought much too much cheese, too heavy and too constipating. I said, “As soon as we get to Critterbush we’ll give away most of this cheese. Upon arriving we saw a young couple to whom I said “Hi. Want some cheese?” The young woman screamed. The last thing she had said before someone heard Aaron and me coming was, “Gee, the one thing we didn’t bring was cheese.”

1977 I decided to hike with only trail mix. “You’ll be sorry” people warned. First night out I shared the Sunrise shelter with two NY bums who were spending the summer living out of boxes on the LT, staying at one shelter till ordered by authorities to move, when they’d move to the next shelter. They treated me to a big spaghetti dinner. Next night, at Skyline shelter, two women hiking the whole trail had gone into town for laundry, showers etc. For their first night back on the trail they had fresh chicken and cold white wine which they shared with me.

After my hike friends would ask mockingly, “Have fun?” “Sure” I answered. “Oh yeah? Have enough to eat?” “Sure. Nature provides.”

Dick McCormack

I started hiking the Long Trail around Cub Scouts age in the late 50's early 1960s. With the basics you learn in scouts it was a natural to apply what we leaned and to have at it. I think the things I learned have been with me all my life. The preparation for the hills carries over to other country travel, exploring the Rockies, traveling by boat (prepared for the unexpected or basics like food, h2o, first aid, foul weather, clothing) etc without over doing it. The rewards go on and on and it needs a healthy body to fully enjoy so It helps create a healthy lifestyle as a normal way of life, clean food etc.

In my case I elected to work with land as a Realtor for the last 32 years and when I have time off I usually run off to the Rockies or some other beautiful place. The awareness of wide vistas, fog, clean water, rain, simple adequite shelter, sunrise, sunset, clouds, bright sunshine, flowers, tree types, good nutritional food, good footware and clothing, health, exploreing whats on the other side and so on are just a few of what I have learned to enjoy thanks to the Long Trail. I too am a proud member of the Green Mountain Club. You do not need to use the trails to support them.

BT

I love the Long Trail, and since 1977, my wife and daughters and I have enjoyed hiking and camping amidst its beauty. No doubt, you’ll be inundated with happy memories of families like mine. But I also have some darker memories, memories that emerge from the shadows along the trail. There was, for example, a hike to Griffith Lake almost 25 years ago. It was an August Friday, a sunny, blue afternoon when my wife and older daughter and I set out from Mt. Tabor for a short climb to the lake, where we planned to camp for a couple of nights. We arrived at the campsite mid-afternoon and began putting up our tent when suddenly three men in camouflage appeared in our site moving quickly, carrying automatic rifles of some variety. They said not a word, just fanned out, moving around, signaling each other as though they were in some B-movie. They disappeared a bit to the north of our site, another campsite just beyond the ranger's tent.

So we finished setting up our site. It was getting cloudy rapidly and colder, much colder. We ate as the last light was disappearing. And then the gunfire started, multiple bursts of automatic explosions. Then silence. The ranger went toward the Rambo campsite and reappeared shortly. He stopped at our tent; he seemed shaken. He said he had visited them. They had been sitting around a campfire, a trio staring at the flames. He spoke to them, told them they couldn’t shoot their weapons. He said they didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at him, just sat there staring into the fire. He left, and it remained quiet. We climbed in our sleeping bags, and it snowed (in August!). We were cold and occasionally awoken by a burst of gunfire. I didn't sleep much, was too worried about what to do if they decided to attack.

The next morning, we decided to head out early; we hadn’t really packed for winter. So we started our breakfast, and then the woods erupted like some kind of war, bullets snapping through the trees above us. We yelled at the morons to cut it out and packed up. The ranger asked us to call the State Police and report what happened when we got to a phone (no cell phones in those days).

It was a memorable trip on the Trail. My wife and younger daughter have other memories of the disturbed and disturbing people they encountered during their various camping trips. There are a lot of really great people you run into out there, but it's the loonies who tend to stick with you, unfortunately.

Alden Blodget
Danby

by Dana Dwinell-Yardley, Montpelier VT

Author's Note: My father and I embarked on a great adventure last summer: hiking Vermont's Long Trail together. I was asked to write about some of our discoveries and stories from the trail for this excellent publication. Instead of telling you about it from an ordinary point of view, though, I decided to interview my alter ego trail identity, North Star, 21, about her trip with Twilight Time, 57. Here's our conversation. . . if you can call it that.

==

DDY: So who are you, anyway? And what's with the funny name?

North Star: Umm... I'm a human being?

DDY: No, I mean: tell me a little bit about yourself.

NS: Ah, I see. Well, I'm a 20-year-old Montpelierite and eighth-generation Vermonter. I take real pride in being born of our Green Mountain State, of having roots here. I love being outside. I was homeschooled for my entire life and now I work in the "real world" as a graphic designer.

North Star is my trail name. It's customary for long-distance hikers to have a trail name that's not their real name. Sometimes it's given to them by other people, sometimes they choose it for themselves. I picked North Star because we were heading north, and I felt like I might need to call upon some kind of inner star — my strength and energy, I guess — to keep on heading north.

DDY: Why did you want to hike the Long Trail?

NS: Wow, good question. I've always found a deep sense of peace and fulfillment after a hike up a Vermont mountain. My father has taken me outside in the woods and on hikes since before I could walk, and I guess I share his love of the Vermont woods and mountains. It's always been a bit of a tickle in my brain — "Hmm... it'd be cool to hike the Long Trail some day..." — and as I got older and more physically and mentally capable the tickle grew into more of a real possibility. Plus, I've always been a bit independent. The idea of being self-contained, with all my stuff and my food on my back, and of getting from one place to another under my own steam really appealed to me.

DDY: Speaking of being capable, were you guys super-buff or something to be able to do this?

NS: (laughs) Uh.. no. Not really. Not at all, actually. We walk or bike around Montpelier instead of driving, and play the casual game of frisbee, but we didn't do any particular fitness plan or anything to get ready. We didn't even manage to get in a practice hike beforehand! But we were both totally fine. The trail got us in shape. We just went a little slower than the crazy buff young AT hikers. Ten-mile days or so.

DDY: How long were you on the trail? Did you do the whole thing?

NS: We were in the trail for 16 days in late August to mid-September. A 12-day stretch and a 4-day stretch. We made it as far as Appalachian Gap... was toward the end of September, it was getting cold, and we weren't sure we'd have time to finish before Twilight Time's October 1 plane trip. And I kinda wanted to save some of it for next year!

DDY: Tell me about the stuff you brought. What did you eat? How heavy were your packs? Did you ever change your clothes?

NS: Ah, practicalities. Our packs were 30, 35 pounds. We didn't carry a tent, trusting that we'd find room in shelters — which we did, for the most part — so that helped cut the weight. We ate food. . . rice, pasta, parmesan cheese, dried fruit. We got these great dried veggie flakes that stopped me from going totally vegetable-crazy. What we ate seemed to be really different than other hikers, though. We had all bulk and whole ingredients whereas most other people had packets of ramen or insta-dried-whatever.

And yeah, I had two tshirts. Wore one and washed the other. But everything else got pretty grody. It doesn't matter so much out there, though: the whole ultra-clean thing that we expect in the "civilized" world.

DDY: I hear you hiked barefoot the whole time, North Star. Wow! Why did you choose to do that? How did it go?

NS: I've never liked shoes. Too hot and sweaty and confining. I've always hiked barefoot — it feels better and works better for me. Long-distance hiking was no exception. I did bang up the ball of one foot through my own stupidity — looking at the gorgeous overgrown orchard instead of at where I was going — but it was an inconvenience, not an emergency, that healed right up on our rest days off the trail.

And bare feet are great in the rain! No squishy socks.

DDY: Did you miss any of the "comforts of civilization"?

NS: Not in terms of technology or appliances, not really. The shower I had when I got home had to have been one of the best in my life, though. And I made the mistake of buying a 45-degree bag, which, on the 90-degree day I bought it, sounded really cold instead of normal for September. I was pretty cold quite a few nights. That was not so much fun — to be inside your sleeping bag wearing all the clothes you have and knowing there's no way to be any warmer.

DDY: What were the other hikers like? Did you meet anyone interesting?

NS: Well, let's just put it this way: to be a long-distance hiker I think you have to be a little nuts in some fashion. Especially so if you're doing something as crazy as hiking the AT (which coincides with the Long Trail up to Rutland). These people, the ones who started in Georgia, had been on the trail for four months or so. Four months. They were almost a different species. Very trail-weary, but very happy to be in Vermont, which they all said was a wonderful, beautiful state. Our favorite AT people were Blue and Caboosie, a couple who had met on the trail. Then there was Greta, who was young woman just out of school and a Long Trail hiker like ourselves — a mellower, more human type, the Long Trail hikers were, in general.

But the most memorable guy was Mr. Ninety-Five. He and his girlfriend and hyper dog were hiking the Long Trail too. This guy had packed everything and anything he could possibly need — and more likely not need. His pack was 95 pounds. And he was always half-complaining, half-bragging about it. He had a solar shower in there, a foot-long knife. . . a gallon of vodka (that he ended up dumping out). The girlfriend was very patient with all of this.

DDY: Is Vermont a different place to hike in than the rest of the country, do you think?

NS: Well, I don't have a lot of experience hiking in other states, so I can't really say. I do think we are truly blessed to have this beautiful 275-mile trail running along the tops of the Green Mountains, far away from towns and roads. It's apparently one of the oldest long-distance trails in the nation. 100 years ago, Vermonters were hauling their ornery selves up these mountains too. That's a cool thing to think about; that I'm carrying on a 100-year tradition of love for Vermont and its wild, mountainous, woodsy places.

DDY: Could you pick a most favorite, most beautiful place on the trail?

NS: Oh gosh. It was all beautiful. You know, I envisioned hiking the Long Trail as scrambling up and down mountains all day, but really, a lot of it was walking through woods on fairly even terrain, especially in the southern bits. That really reaffirmed my love of the woods, especially maple woods, and got me thinking about things like biology and ecosystems and why certain things grow in some places but not others. This world we live in is truly fascinating and wonderful. But as for sheer beauty. . . the mornings eating breakfast on Glastenbury fire tower and swimming in Stratton Pond were pretty good. And I loved the Monroe Skyline.

DDY: Did you have any hair-raising experiences? Fighting off bears with your bare hands or anything? Scrambling up sheer rock faces through golf-ball-sized hail?

NS: (laughs) You've been reading too much Bill Bryson! We didn't see anything larger than a rabbit the whole time. And the weather blessed us with 14 days of sunshine.

The hard parts were much less exciting than all that, though. I had a rough time dealing with shelters, at first — I'm an introvert and so being around people after being alone all day was hard for me. I figured it out, though. That's another mark of a long-distance hiker — you learn to have "shelter manners," really good personal boundaries when sharing space with others.

We had one day that was pretty sucky — 15 miles from just north of Route 4 to Brandon Gap. There is nothing exciting there. No views, no ponds, streams, nothing. But you are still climbing mountains. And my foot was hurting, too. Not a great day. But at Brandon Gap we got picked up by this wonderful woman who felt like being kind to two bedraggled hitchhikers, and so — happy ending —we made it home that night and got to have showers and watermelon.

DDY: What did you like most about your trip? What was the best part?

NS: The physical and psychological reward that comes from going places on your own two legs is wonderful. We walked all the way from Massachusetts to Waitsfield! How cool is that?! And on a smaller scale, we did those 15-miles days, climbed those mountains, survived the rain and cold and injury when it seemed to be a crazy impossible task. But we did it. And we had fun. That's something to be proud of.

The other best part of it was being outside all the time. Really being part of Vermont, seeing wild places that I never knew existed. We live in a beautiful state, and we miss a lot of its most beautiful places when we travel the same old roads every day.

DDY: What would you say to other Vermonters interested in doing something like this?

NS: If you want to do it, go for it! You don't need special training; just a love of hiking and some basic gear and knowledge.

My experience was that it's both hard and easy. Hard because you're walking all day through the woods and up mountains with 35 pounds on your back and dealing with the inconveniences of no modern house at the end of the day. Easy because that's all it is. All you have to do is walk through the woods all day. All your stuff is in one place. It's a less complicated way of being. More human. More real than a lot of the stuff we do in our day-to-day lives.

DDY: Are you going to finish next year?

NS: Oh yeah! I can't wait.

There are many memories I could share from late August -- early September 2007, when my father and I hiked the Long Trail from North Adams to Appalachian Gap - for starters, I hiked (quite comfortably and happily) barefoot the entire time, and he carried his original frame backpack from the 1970s when he first hiked the LT -- but here's just a little snippet that VPR folks might enjoy.

One of our pastimes on the trail was singing. It helped keep spirits up when they threatened to sink, helped the miles go by, and was a way to share the exuberant and silly moments, too. Both my dad and I have always had a penchant for making up new words to songs, especially ludicrous or timely ones, and so somewhere along past Bromley, I wrote some new verses to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Long Trail Song

CHORUS:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Long Trail hikers are peculiar!
If hiking every day would thrill ya
Then come and march along!

We're marching over rocks and roots and puncheon in the woods
We've walked up over many a mountain just because we could
And we're probably not getting as many showers as we should
The Long Trail marches on!

CHORUS

We read and write in registers, in lovely shelter logs
"We woke up up on Bromley and the summit was in fog!"
We're far away from iPods, from computers, and from blogs
The Long Trail marches on!

CHORUS

We're marching up to Canada o'er many a raging brook
As we pass by other hikers, North Star's feet get funny looks
And we might get sick of oatmeal, but there's other stuff to cook
The Long Trail marches on!

CHORUS

Shared by Dana Dwinell-Yardley, Montpelier VT

By Chris Eubanks

I pulled my pack out of the car, and discovered that I could barely lift it to my back. I could not lift it beyond my waist without severely straining my back. This thing is too heavy…much too heavy, I thought. My brother Sean and my dad had to come on both sides of me and physically lift it up so I could strap it on. It took two guys just to get the pack on my back. And I was going to carry it 270 miles?  I took a test walk around the parking lot.  Although I knew the pack still weighed 29 pounds, it felt much heavier than when I was walking around with it at home. Contributing to its weight were five changes of clothes, a jumbo bag of trail mix, two jumbo packs of beef jerky, metal breakfast bowls, a composition notebook, and a tube of toothpaste. Though heavy, the food and bowls were essential, but the rest was dead weight that I could have done without.

Our plan was to hike the Long Trail straight through for twenty or thirty days, depending on which one of us you asked. Dad had his mind set on twenty, while Sean and I thought thirty was more reasonable. Every five days or so, when we reached a highway, my mom and my sister Shannon would drive down with five more days of supplies. I knew that my pack would be heavy the first day, but I just figured that we would eat about five pounds of food from it.
 
We stood at the edge of the woods and posed for our picture that Mom took of us. Our faces revealed a slight expression of overconfidence. We each sincerely believed that we could reach Canada in one month, which was reflected particularly in my Dad’s beaming smile. In our minds we were well conditioned. We had already hiked Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New England twice in the two past consecutive years, as well as dozens of other peaks near our home in northeastern Vermont. When some of my Mom’s friends expressed concern about our lack of experience, she would just reply, “Well, they’ve climbed Mt. Washington twice.”  She would not mention that we had not done a single overnight backpacking trip.

Now we were hiking in Massachusetts on the Pine Cobble Trail, the approach to the Long Trail. The LT officially starts at the Vermont border, a four-mile hike to the north. My pack straps were already digging into my shoulders in the parking lot, but I was too busy thinking about our adventure ahead to feel the pain. I easily climbed Pine Cobble, the first small mountain in Massachusetts, and had a surge of confidence. We had been hiking for half an hour...

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As we celebrate 100 years of The Long Trail, I am pleased that my daughter is en-route, as I write,  to becoming a third generation end-to-ender.  My dad, Alan Mead, was an avid hiker and introduced me to the trail and the GMC at age 10.  He co-founded the Connecticut Section of the GMC, was on several committees, hosted Intersectional and Annual Meetings and later was  President of the St. Albans Section.  Together with my brothers we maintained trail, built and re-conditioned several shelters, and by age 17, I had earned my end-to-end patch. 

A couple of years later I was hired with a friend by the Burlington Section of the GMC to plan and clear an eight mile re-route of the trail in the Bolton area.   This involved living/working in the woods for the summer and easily became the summer of a lifetime for me.  For me the trail holds very special memories of relaxation, hard work, friendship, love, and a grounded sense of well-being.  Each time I return to the trail, it is as if I have returned home.  

I will be waiting at Journey’s End for my daughter next month knowing that she will have accomplished more than the goal of completing the trail, knowing that she will have locked something special into her soul that will last her a lifetime.

- Randy Mead

I have lots of vivid memories of my Long Trail hike from June and July of 1970. The gorgeous wildflowers bobbing through the low clouds in the high meadows, the crystalline ponds just begging for our skimming stones, the jovial voices of total strangers turned to comrades at the shelters, the rattlesnake that we nimbly detoured at White Rocks Cliffs, the exuberant exhaustion after an eight hour slog on a rain slick trail, all these come shimmering back. But there is one memory that truly stands prominently and purely apart from the others. The porcupines.

Perhaps it is different now, but that hike forty years ago was haunted by those little varmints. They visited us all but one of our 23 nights on the trail. They sunk their pesky choppers into kindling and they gnawed on logs and shelter poles. They whined and hissed, grunted, and sobbed. They would raid our smoldering campfire and dig for grease and morsels. We would throw mess kits and canteens at them but to no avail. They'd waddle off for a moment or two, then return, reinvigorated. They were active climbers. One of them shimmied up to a shelf and made off with my trail journal (for the salt from my sweat I was told). I found it the next morning, well shredded.That porky apparently didn't appreciate my nasty slurs and imprecations cast at his brethren nor did he take kindly to the portraits I sketched of his kind in very unflattering poses. One member of our party, Al, bailed out after two weeks of porcupine induced insomnia.

Of course they knew they held the upper hand, and it brought them great glee. They knew we couldn't just grab them and dropkick them. They were the primary topic in all the shelter logs. Hikers ranted and raved about them. Clever and ridiculous plots were hatched to liquidate them. Recipes were concocted for them, quills and all. Some entries bragged of successful abatement, but when twilight came creeping, so did you know who.

We met a townie at Bromley Camp who was very drunk and had come up to the cabin for the sole purpose of shooting hedgehogs. We were many days into the hike ,so needless to say, we didn't express any moral objections. That was the one night we weren't bothered by the porkies. We worried all night about the hedgehog hunter though. He went to bed with his sixhooter snug in a holster around his middle and he kept getting up to stoke the woodstove. That episode nurtured a slightly more tolerant attitude toward our prickly adversaries.

One day toward the end of our hike, we were regrouping near a serene shoreline. We were munching on granola bars and swigging some Halizoned water. I sat down on a rock and felt something sharp enter my right buttocks. A final straw? No. A final quill. Right through the no-nonsense fabric of my Levis.

Mark Roberts
Lisbon, NH

Back in 1995, the Long Trail provided me with my first home and my first job in Vermont.   Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Anne LaBastille’s Woodswoman and by the notion of a “Footpath in the Wilderness”, I had come to Vermont for its woods.  I figured that working for the Green Mountain Club as a caretaker at one of the Long Trail shelters would give me a chance to spend serious time in the woods and see how enamored I really was with them.  Maybe I was just smitten by romantic notions that would fizzle when the bugs, the sweat, and the lack of a shower got to me. 

The experiment went well.  I found that I really did love the woods; bugs and sweat included.  I also found much else – delightful swimming holes, small towns, and, most of all, Vermonters.  On one of my first weekends at Butler Lodge, my new ‘home’ on the southern slopes of Mt Mansfield, a day-hiking couple from Jericho invited me to spend my days off at their home, an offer that not only addressed the sweat and shower issue but also helped me feel welcome in a place where I knew hardly anyone.  Other locals brought little presents when their outings took them near Butler Lodge – a fresh loaf of bread, a piece of fruit, a bottle of beer or wine.  Other, less tangible but just as welcome presents came in the form of news, stories, and observations along the trail.

Having to share ‘my’ home in the woods with everyone who stopped by for a break or overnight meant that I talked to plenty of people that summer, through-hikers as well as locals.  I met people with names like “Mad Mountain Mama” and “TV” (short for Trail Vulture), people on personal quests, on long-distance honeymoon hikes, and people who simply loved the woods and felt, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, that "in these woods, we return to reason and faith".  And I came to appreciate and love this state where so many people, from countless volunteers to the governor, work to maintain and protect Vermont's ‘footpath in the wilderness’.

Though I am now a city dweller, the Long Trail is still close to my heart and central to what Vermont means to me.

Many thanks to the Green Mountain Club for giving me the opportunity to come to know Vermont from the vantage point of the Long Trail.

Kerstin Lange, South Burlington

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Trail, I'm going to attempt to break the existing speed record for running it end-to-end (4 days, 12 hours, 46 minutes). I'll be doing this run as a fundraiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (where I was treated in 2003-2004) from August 23-27. My blog - Run 192 -  will have updates throughout the adventure and I will be wearing a GPS tracking device for people to follow along with my progress.

I would also like to mention, and this is very important for me to make clear, I am very much a lover of nature and have the utmost respect for those who work long hours to maintain this country's great trails, such as the Long Trail. I follow all LNT rules and respect every mile of trail I cover, and never abuse my privilege to enjoy nature in any way. I grew up hiking the mountains and trails of New England, and take pride in the many hour or trail work I've done in the region over the years.

All the best,

Dan Rose

For our annual backpacking trip in 1991, my best friend Noel voted to hike a portion of the Long Trail instead of adding another segment of the Appalachian Trail to our tally. We chose what appeared to be a gentle-looking segment of the LT starting at Appalachian Gap and ending at Middlebury Gap.

Allowing five days for about thirty miles promised a leisurely stroll in the late August sun. Unfortunately, years of stressful jobs had taken their toll, and we had to push steadily every day to reach our goals. Summiting Mount “Abe” was the hardest part. To my eye, Noel, even though she carried more and more of the load, danced from one slippery, house-sized block of talus to the next, while I inched along, gasping on the way up and clinging to trees on the way down.

On our last night of the hike, we came upon a fully-enclosed cabin at Skylight Pond and were delighted to find it clean and empty. We wouldn’t need to scout for a level, rock-free spot to pitch the tent before dark. As the clear light faded, we feasted on left-over cheese and noodles, and watched two moose wading quietly in the pond under a full moon. Soon after dark, we stowed our packs inside and decided to sleep in the loft.

I had fallen into a deep sleep when Noel elbowed me awake. Always a light sleeper, she rarely got much sleep if she was anywhere within a football field of my bear-like snoring, so I assumed she was nudging me to roll over. I was grateful for the interruption because I had been dreaming of a really tedious and loud talk radio show, and was about to mutter, “Hey, Buddy, can you turn it down?” when Noel clapped her hand over my mouth and whispered,

“There’s somebody out there.”

 “Plenty of room,” I said.

I settled back into my sleeping bag, but Noel, hands cupping her ears, signaled for me to listen. A loud man’s voice seemed to come from the direction of an old logging road we had noted on the way into camp. This was the source of the “talk show”. Catching a few disconnected phrases, I noticed that there was something disturbing about the monologue. Who was he talking to? In tones both hectoring and convincing, he seemed to be over-selling the attractions of the spot to his silent or, possibly, imaginary companion.

“Private…. Nobody within miles…just tonight….It’ll be fine.”

Soon they were close enough for us to hear another person’s responses, a young-sounding male. He was saying in a dull, flat mumble,

 “Oh? Yeah. Um. Really? But we don’t have any gear.”

Noel’s finely tuned antennae sensed something sinister: these weren’t late-arriving hikers. No hiker needed to be convinced that this was a spectacular spot. The monologue lacked any similarity to hikers’ conversations, which generally involve a little boasting and reminiscing about steeper, longer, “badder” trails we have known, usually peppered liberally with teasing. As in,

“Heck, that scrape on your knee is nothing compared to the one I got in Patagonia…”

Without exchanging a word, Noel and I understood that our presence would be both unexpected and unwelcome. No need to discuss it: the loft was a dead end. There was only one ladder to the lower level, one door to the outside, and a good fifty yards to the relative safety of the forest. We silently slid out of our sleeping bags, pulled on our pants, and laced up our boots for a hasty exit. Noel unfolded her two-inch pocket knife and gripped it like a dagger. I grabbed my can of pepper spray from under my pillow and jammed it into my front pocket. Now what? Noel mimed kicking the ladder or the head of its climber - hard. I nodded.

By this time, I was certain the pounding of my heart was audible, and it didn’t help that we had scared each other to death the night before discussing real and rumored murders of women on the AT. Unable to sit tight and wait for the sound of steps coming up the ladder, I started to talk loudly in different low voices to create the impression of a cabin crammed to the rafters with football player-sized he-men.  Better yet, football players in lousy moods. Although Noel preferred silence and invisibility, she joined me as we growled in our best “real guy” voices,

“Who the hell is that making all that noise?”

“I dunno. Tell ‘em to shut the hell up.”

But no one heard us, or the “salesman”, turning bully, would have stopped speaking. Just outside the wall of the cabin, we heard him say,

“Oh, come on. Won’t be light for hours.”

We were out of time: heavy footsteps thumped the ground on the windowless side of the cabin. As ready as we could be, we crab-walked closer to the edge of the platform. I leaned forward as much as my tight pants would allow and peered through the window on the lake side: all I could see were tree branches lacing star-filled skies. Noel was about to slide down the ladder when a loud hissing sound stopped her in her tracks. This was immediately followed by a roof-shattering screech. I knocked her aside, flung myself over the edge, and slid down the ladder missing every single step.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh, God!”

Screaming enough swear words to make a sailor blush, I plunged through the half-open door and ran straight down to the pond. I didn’t stop yelling until I was waist deep in the freezing water. I stayed there until my legs were numb, and my crotch had settled down to a pounding ache. Looking up the slope, I could see that there was no one at the cabin. Not even Noel.

As the first light turned the sky from deep blue to lavender, Noel appeared at the edge of the forest. She approached the pond silently at an oblique angle, pausing frequently to look over her shoulder at the cabin and trail.

“They’re gone. Totally gone,” she called out to me.

“I guess they took off after you started screaming.”

More likely they got the message when I rammed them with the door, I thought.

Reaching the edge of the pond, Noel asked,

“Why did you DO that?”

I was already squelching out of the freezing water, pants around my knees. I sprawled in the mud, doubled over in sobs and helpless giggles.

“Margie, are you OK? What happened?”

Between gulps of air, I tried to explain.

“The pepper spray went off in my pocket.”

- Margie Winslow