My location is listed as Island Pond, VT, but that's because the only way to specify a location is with a ZIP code, and there's no post office in
Avery's Gore. I'd been planning to get up there at some point, a boondoggle not unlike the time in 1991 when I dragged three friends
38 miles up the Canol Road, but that kind of thing is tough to schedule. Today seemed like the day, though, and off I went.
The original plan was to try and climb the mountain, but there were a few problems with that. The first was that although I had printed out a topo map from the internet, it wasn't that good, and I really wasn't sure where I was starting (couldn't consult the phone because there was no signal up there). The second was that there was the not insignificant possibility that I might head off into the woods and then be unable to find my car again. But the biggest issue was that the woods really sucked. I had no desire to venture into them, so I stopped the car in some arbitrary spot and just continued up the road/trail on foot.
Another reason not to go into the woods was that you don't know what might be in there. Or maybe you do. About halfway up I spotted a bear about 100 m up ahead. Last time something like that happened, I turned around and went elsewhere, but this time I just called out, "Hey bear, how ya doing?", he skedaddled, and I continued on, but tried to keep up a conversation with myself. I did not see any mooses, but I did see a healthy supply of moose tracks.
Turns out that the spot where I parked was just about ideal, because not far beyond it was an impassable washout. I wasn't too energetic on this hike, at least on the way up, and was slowed down some by the fact that the trail was pretty muddy for a while. Although the gore is uninhabited, there are a few cabins, including one with a sign reading "Whittiers" that was beyond the washout, on the edge of Unknown Pond. I was thinking that they must be bummed about the washout making their camp inaccessible, but I think most of the traffic up there is probably snowmobiles, and maybe they only use the place in the winter.
Looking at better resources now that I'm home, I see that the road/trail I was on doesn't even appear on the printed map I had, and I drove further than I had been imagining possible. Getting to the spot that I had in mind would have involved driving way around (or coming on off the paved road from a different access point, but it didn't really matter since going off-trail to climb the mountain really didn't have much appeal. I think I'd need a masochistic partner to try that one.
I made better time on the trip back to the car, and it's a strange coincidence that this took nearly the same time as the orienteering (8 seconds less) and the distance also matches to within less than 10 meters. I honestly didn't do that on purpose.