[at-l] Trip Report: Mt. Equinox, Vermont - June 25, 2003

[papabear.nyc at verizon.net (Papa Bear)]

As some of you may know, in addition to long distance hiking along the AT, I like to hike off the main thoroughfares and hit the lesser known trails and mountain peaks, primarily in New England. One of my projects is to hike the New England 100 highest peaks, which start with Mount Washington (6288') as # 1 and ends with Canon Balls Peak in New Hampshire (3769') as # 100.  If you hike the AT and are willing to go a little ways off (up to .5 miles) the trail, you will hit 37 of these, not bad.  You can hit 3 or 4 more if you're willing to go a lot off of the AT (say 1.5 miles - including some bushwhacks).

This week I hiked Mt.Equinox in Vermont.  It lies across the Manchester valley from the Green Mountains (where the AT goes), approximately due west of Prospect Rock (about 10 miles up the trail from Stratton Mountain).  At 3850', it is the highest peak in the Taconic Range which stretches north from Connecticut into Vermont.  It was the last of the 100 highest in southern Vermont on my list, so it was good to complete this one.  All the Vermont peaks left on my list lie on or near the Long trail, north of Maine Junction, and I hope to climb all of those next year when I do that part of the Long Trail.

On Wednesday June 25th I got on an early bus in NYC and headed up to Vermont.  The rainy season seemed to be over and the weather was expected to be hot and somewhat humid both in New York and Vermont.  Around noon I arrived in the old part of Manchester, right in front of the historic Equinox Hotel.

When I hopped out of the bus I could feel that it was a rather hot day, around 90 degrees in the valley. I was hoping it would be cooler when I hit the woods.  The trail guide (The Vermont Day Hikers Guide, published by the Green Mountain Club) suggests parking in the Equinox Hotel's parking lot and gives directions from there up the hill to the trailhead.  This was essentially a dirt road up to a small parking lot on the grounds of the Burr and Burton Academy (formerly a seminary). The trail from there up the mountain is very well marked and maintained by the Equinox Preservation Trust.  The descriptions given in Gene Daniell's notes mentioning confusion and a multiplicity of trails at the bottom and the top of this trail are no longer an issue.  It's well marked with no confusion from bottom to top.  The trail is the Burr and Burton Trail (or the Blue Trail) and is marked in blue.  It was 90 degrees and humid at the trailhead and I got going about 12:25 PM.

>From the parking lot the trail follows a woods road up a very easy slope.  A few mosquitoes were buzzing around which was a little annoying but they didn't seem to be biting.  The road got increasingly steep and although there was no scrambling, the route was consistently steep for the next 2 miles.  On this hot day it was very tiring.

About half way up - after climbing about 1400' - there was a side trail to a spring which the book described as "Gushing" - it said you could hear the spring from the trail junction - and you could.  I took the short walk over to check this out and sure enough it was not just gushing, but literally cascading out of the side of the mountain.  Someone had put a pipe into the side of the hill to channel the spring, perhaps to control erosion, and with the water flowing out of the pipe at least 10 feet through the air, it looked like a water main that had burst.  If you hike this hike, by all means check this out.

Above the spring the route became less and less a road and more and more a trail.  But there were signs from the way the route was cut into the side of the mountain that it had one been some sort of a road, perhaps for some logging long ago.  I passed the only other hiker I would see all day here, a woman coming down the trail.  There were some broad curving stretches which sufficed to keep the hike reasonable.  Sort of switchbacks on a very large scale.

At about 3100' the trail leveled off for a while and it was clear I had finished most of the steepest hiking.  The trees also changed from mixed hardwoods to spruce and fir, as you would expect at this elevation.  This section was rather pleasant with mostly open, older trees.  It had clearly not been logged in a while.  At about 3500 it once again became steep and the trees here were very thick.  I crossed another trail marked in yellow which led to the right to Lookout Rock, and to the left to the summit road southwest of the summit.

The trail continued a short distance to the ridge line where it crossed a dirt road and a radio transmission tower.  The trail circled around to the left of this and at this point the Burr and Burton (Blue) trail ended at a T intersection with the Equinox Ridge Trail.  I took a left and in a short time arrived at the open summit.

This was not a particularly beautiful site: there was a large hotel (The Equinox Inn, that was closed) and a parking lot with a large array of radio towers off to the side.  But there were some nice views, particularly to the west. The parking lot was the upper end of the Equinox summit road, a private toll road.  A few cars were there and a few "fat people" were wandering around.  I guess they were disappointed there was no snack bar to reward them after their difficult drive to the top :).  I had arrived at the summit in about 2 hours, a distance of about 3 miles with 2700' of elevation gain.  There were a few bugs (black flies) around but like the mosquitoes lower down they seemed not to be biting.

I then took the ridge trail back and kept going past the B&B trail intersection towards Lookout Rock, which, at the other end of the ridge, was supposedly a much nice destination than the true summit.  On the way I passed a memorial stone for "Mr. Barbo", whom the inscription said was "shot and killed by a malicious hunter, Nov. 24, 1955".  He had apparently belonged to a prominent physician from Manchester who loved to hike in this area with his dog.

Very soon I arrived at Lookout Rock and enjoyed a good rest and lunch stop.  The views to the east were great and the setting was very nice.  The bugs were around but as at the summit they were not biting.  I got moving again a little before 3:00 PM and took the Yellow Trail, which followed the ridge line down slightly to the east (left) of the other trail.  This way I could get to the B&B Trail and bypass the radio transmitter.  I did this, and in about 7 minutes arrived at the B&B Trail and headed down.

Steep trails are hard going up, but also going down, especially ones such as this that had an elevation change of around 1000' per mile.  My Lekis got a good workout keeping my quads and knees from getting too much stress.  But it was nevertheless faster going down than up. I arrived at the trail head in about an hour and a half from Lookout Rock.  My total hike was just about 4 hours.

I had arranged to stay overnight with Mrs. Gorp, who lives in Wallingford, about 20 miles north of Manchester.  She was definitely my trail angel for this trip.  I gave her a call and she agreed to meet me in front of the Equinox Hotel in about a half hour.  So I walked down to the Equinox the same way as I had come and found a nice shaded spot in front of the court house opposite the hotel.  There I rested after a tiring, albeit short hike on a hot day.

Soon I was picked up by Mrs. Gorp who had come with her son.  And soon thereafter I was sitting by her pool enjoying a cold one and some barbeque.  I seemed to have one ich on the back of my neck so the toll from the bugs was slight.  It had been a good day!

Total Mileage: 5.9 miles, elevation gain: 3060'

Pictures from this hike are up in the Backcountry.net gallery: http://gallery.backcountry.net/papabear_equinox

Pb

 
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