Vermont's 4,000-footers: Summary

Amazingly, prior to this summer, I had never been hiking in Vermont. Every summer since I can remember, I’ve come to New Hampshire for a couple weeks each summer for hiking. But probably because the state offers so many hiking opportunities, I’ve never even thought about heading west for the no-billboards state to hike.

This year, I figured it was time to do just that and summit Vermont’s five 4,000-footers. This would leave me with just Maine’s 14 highest summits to peak in order to claim that I’d hiked all of New England’s official highest peaks.

Oh, baby.

I put together a very ambitious plan, which involved hiking the summits in two days, with my friend Hannah’s house in South Royalton, VT, serving as my home base. Here is the breakdown of how my days turned out (not necessarily how I planned them; read on for that):

Day 1:

-- 9am: Leave for Mt. Killington (4,235 ft.) on Sherburne trail

-- 1:10pm: Back at the car (12.4 miles total)

-- 2:31pm: Start Mts. Abraham (4,006 ft.) and Ellen (4,083 ft.)

-- 7:41pm: Down (12.6 miles total)

= 25 miles in about 9 hours of hiking

Day 2:

-- 7:39am: Leave for Camel’s Hump (4,083 ft.) on Monroe trail

-- 9:25am: Top of Camel’s Hump

-- 10:51am: Down  (7.6 miles total)

-- 12:12pm: Start up Long Trail on Mt. Mansfield (4,393 ft.)

-- 1:37: Top of Mansfield

-- 3:45: Down after 30-minute break on top of summit (6.5 miles total)

= 12.1 miles in about 7 hours

TOTAL: 37.1 miles hiked