Camel's Hump, Vermont

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
6/3/2018	6.5 miles	2 hours 16 minutes

Map: Long Trail map
Parking: See book
Directions: Monroe Trail to summit

Another beautiful day near Waterbury, Vermont. Today we got lucky and had sunny skies in the morning. We had a short drive to the Camel's Hump parking area. Parking is free. Again, we heard more French on the trail then English. Glen felt great physically on yesterday's hike, so he was excited about today's hike. Today's hike I think is considered harder than Mount Mansfield. The hardest part was once we were on the Long Trail. The rock scrambling reminded me of the Devil's Path. My muscles were tired! Lots of people passed us. There was a group of hikers much older than me that blew by us. It felt like everyone else was much more fit! We didn't get above treeline until close to the summit. You can see Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks from up there. I wanted to practice locating things with my map and compass, but the Long Trail map is just a strip map, so doesn't show much. Going down the trail was easier - we took a different route. People continued to pass us. My Altras do have poor traction so I had to be careful. After getting wet, they even slip on dry rocks. It felt like the hike was less crowded than yesterday's Mount Mansfield hike, yet when we got to the summit there were quite a lot of people. I guess they came up a different route. The summit, like Mount Mansfield is an alpine tundra area. You have to step carefully, so you only step on rocks, and not step on the fragile plants.

After we got cleaned up from our hike, we headed over to the Ben & Jerry's factory. Unfortunately, we got their too late for a tour, but we did have some ice cream & walked around the grounds. We also visited Sunflower Natural Foods (unrelated to the store with the same name that we frequent in Woodstock). We tried to pull together a dinner from what they have, and also bought some Heady Topper beer, which a few coworkers told me I must try.

Today's hike made me feel old. It's psyching me out for the backpacking we need to do in the White Mountains in NH, which is going to be tough! People a lot older than me hike the AT every year, so I just have to keep plugging away. I'm not concerned at all about the states south of us, but New Hampshire and Maine have a reputation of being very difficult.

Camel's Hump summit