Training Log Archive: Fanatic

Hike with Colette and Peter Crisci on the bike trails to the west of Stowe Fork, where the Ranch Brook and West Branch join near Route 108.

We managed to find some older trails that are not particularly popular with mountain bikers, so we didn’t have much of an issue with bikers at all. Only one trail that we traversed had some bike traffic on it, the rest we had to ourselves.

Hike with Colette on the Lemoille Valley Rail Trail starting in Hyde Park in Vermont. This is a very flat, crushed stone/dirt bike and hike trail that covers 34 miles in northern Vermont, but will be 93 miles long when completed in 2023.

We did an out-and-back heading west to begin. Needless to say, there were many bikers, of all ages, on the trail, but we were the only hikers and geocachers--Colette found four caches.

The trail parallels the Lemoille River, so there are stretches that are not only beautiful, but offer good birdwatching as well. Mostly though, the trail seems to pass through a lot of farms and cornfields.

This was a good, easy recovery walk after yesterday's Mt. Mansfield outing.

Hike with Peter Crisci starting from the Underhill State Park's parking lot.
First we climbed through the campground area of the park to the Sunset Ridge Trail which took us to the top of the ridge where we went left to the summit of Mt. Mansfield. From there we went south on the Long Trail and out to The Forehead where we turned to the west and started the long downhill to the parking lot.

There were lots of people on the Sunset Ridge and the Long Trail sections, but considerable fewer once we started our descent.

Hike with Colette on the Stowe Pinnacle trail and then a little more toward Hogback Mountain before turning back to the parking lot.

There were a lot of people on the trail; seems to be a popular short hike since it's only a five-minute drive from the center of Stowe.

Geocaching with Colette in Sterling Forest in Stowe, Vermont. Very pleasant trails and woods, not rocky and very few roots; only negative were the black flies.

Met one mountain biker and an old man with a wheelbarrow on a trail--he stopped to ask us if we had seen any brush on the trail. We replied nothing big and he proceeded to pick up a small 6" twig and add it to his meager pile of "brush". He was obviously quite old, but in fairly good shape, although he seemed overdressed with a down jacket and wool cap on a day when the temperature was in the low 80sF.

Hike with Colette from downtown Stowe up Sunset Hill, just behind the B&B were we are staying. A steep trail takes one to a couple of nice spits with views of Stowe and Mt. Mansfield in the distance.

Colette tried to find another goecache, to no avail. Alas, the black fies were in abundance once again.

Once off the hill, we walked through town for a little bit before heading to the B&B.

Hike with Colette on the Long Trail starting from Route 108. We did two out-and-backs, first heading north, then south. Some nice sections when close to the highway, but rockier and rootier as we climbed higher in both directions.

Met a few people on the northern leg, but only one hiker on the southern leg--he was a serious hiker and had been to the top of Mansfield. He described the climb as hand over fist, holding on to roots and rocks, so quite tough. We weren't heading that far, at least not today.

Not that we could go much faster, but we were trying to take it easy on the uphills. This was a scouting hike so that Colette would be familiar with the LT North section so that she might meet up with me and Peter Crisci as we hike south later this week.

Hike from downtown Stowe, Vermont, with Colette. We started on the Stowe Recreational Trail and then crossed Route 108 and onto the bike trails in Cady Hill Forest. These were well maintained trails with few rocks and were quite nice for hiking. Only later, as we went further to the southwest and higher, did we encounter some rocky, rooty sections, much like one would find on most New England trails.

We met a lot of mountain bikers, including a group of fifteen to twenty women who came flying and laughing down a parallel trail to the one we were on. We met up at the intersection where they were waiting for some more women. Finally, as we ended our trail section in Stowe, on Route 100, we realized that it must have been a women's night out on the trail for the bikers. It helped that there were two pubs adjacent to the parking lot. :-)