Day 8 - Long Trail

After having an amazing and huge breakfast at the Inn at Long Trail, with real coffee might I add, we had to pack our bags and head up the mountain.  Since we were hiking the original Long Trail we headed up Sherburne Pass to the Deer Leap Overlook before heading down to the split of the AT and LT.  This is the giant rock that hovers over the Inn at Long Trail and the view was phenomenal!  We took the AT back to Maine Junction, seeing some of the AT NoBo's we had been camping with for a few days during our time in Vermont.  We reached the split and headed north.  We reached the former site of the Tucker Johnson shelter quickly and met a couple hiking for the week with their hyper and happy dog, Rosebud.  We continued along to the Rolston Rest shelter five miles in and stopped for lunch with Rich from Wisconsin and our friend Dirt Nap.

Killington from Deer Leap Overlook. 

After lunch our day became a little tougher with bigger and steeper climbs than we were used to on the AT section of Vermont.  We also walked through a part of the forest being actively logged, so that was a big change also.  The trail today definitely reminded us a lot of being back on the BMT again!  After crossing paths with a snowmobile trail a few times, we came to an overlook with an obscured view of the mountains to the east.  We took a break to prep for the final part of our day, climbing Mt. Carmel to the David Logan shelter.

Branching off from the AT to northern Vermont! 

We got to the shelter and met a couple we had hiked with a few days ago and Dirt Nap.  Bernard came in a little later and some younger guys showed up near dark who had hiked all the way from Pico Camp!  We had a large campfire and NoKey and I had some IPAs he had packed out of town before calling it a night.

Day 7 - Long Trail

We slept in this morning since we thought we had no chance of making it to Killington before 11 am.  We began hiking at 8 am and immediately began our climb of Killington (the mountain, not the town!)  The climb started out gradual, but became much steeper as the miles went by!  We stopped at a beautiful spring about 2/3 of the way up to refill our water and then continued on up the hill, now getting views to the east.

Looking east- I could count five ridge lines when I was looking out that way! 

We reached what is considered the top on the Long Trail at Cooper Lodge Shelter, but the peak of Killington is actually 0.2 miles higher.  We climbed up to get the view and reached the top at 10:30.  We couldn't believe how quickly we hiked 7 miles this morning!  From the top, thru hikers can take a free gondola ride to the resort down the hill.  We did this to kill time since we were planning a short day.  We found out the post office was actually open until noon and a free bus was coming in less than 5 minutes that drove right by!  We hopped on and rode to the post office and the Inn at Long Trail to get a room for the night. We might not have found the Secret Shelter, but our luck today was incredible!  

The amazing view from the very top of Killington! 

From here, we have an easy day hike of the trail, the Sherburne Pass Trail, up to Pico Peak.  Pico is where we were planning to stay tonight, but since we got to town in time we no longer have to camp!  We chose to take the blue blazed Sherburne Pass Trail because it is the original and historic Long Trail.  It was rerouted in 1999 to the present location down the hill.  Since we took the white blaze back in 2012, we decided to blue blaze this time for a change of scenery!  

The Inn at Long Trail!   

Tonight we will get laundry done and have a beer in the Irish Pub while listening to live Irish music. We have an easy day planned out of town tomorrow to help us adjust to the tougher part of the Long Trail.  We say goodbye to the AT in the morning... North to Canada we go!