Agile Trekker: VT Appalachian Trail - Section 6

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
10/26/2019	12.1 miles	7 hours 47 minutes	1,617'	1.6 mph	471.4

Map: Appalachian Trail Conservancy New Hampshire-Vermont Map 7
Parking: One car at Mad Tom Road (south of the trail), one car at USFS 10
Directions: Hike from Mad Tom Road to USFS 10

One of my hiking goals for the year was to finish the Vermont section of the Appalachian Trail. We had been holding off, since we were waiting until our pup was a year old before we started doing longer miles with him. He's now a year old, recovered from his neutering surgery, so it was time to take him for a long hike on the AT. We decided earlier this week to try for finishing Vermont this weekend. We had about 17 miles left. I originally wanted to backpack it, but at this point its a bit cold for me at night. It was challenging to find a hotel. We were hiking right around Manchester Center, but I had problems finding dog friendly lodging there. We found 2 hotels which allowed dogs under 20 pounds. And several hotels which didn't allow dogs. We also have the added challenge that we now have an electric vehicle, so we need a convenient place to charge at night. We decided to stay in Brattleboro, VT. I've stayed there several times for dog agility trials, and I love visiting the Brattleboro Food Coop. I knew there was a Motel 6 there which was dog friendly, having stayed there for agility trials. Not the best place, but still $100/night! They jack up the prices in Vermont during leaf peeping season. We drove out on Friday and woke up at 5am on Saturday. It turns out the drive from Brattleboro to our trailhead was quite long - around 1 1/2 hours. We dropped off our first car at USFS 10. Our map shows that you can only approach the Mad Tom Road parking lot from south of the AT. We tried continuing on USFS 10 south of the AT to get there. We drove 5 miles, but the road was closed, so we had to turn around. We had to drive west on Route 7 to Manchester Center, then south on Route 11 to Peru where we took some other roads to get to the south side of Mad Tom Road. By the time we started hiking, it was 4 1/4 hours after we woke up! Most of our climbing was early in the day. We hiked up Styles Peak, which had a view, and then somehow missed the view at Peru Peak (which I think we've hiked years ago with Trek and Moxie). I didn't practice map & compass skills, but I did take note when we passed signs saying we were entering/leaving the Peru Peak Wilderness area, which allowed me to see where we were on the map. We passed by the Peru Peak Shelter, and then Griffith Lake. Trek just wanted to swim. We took a lunch break and let him play in the water while Krummholz watched. When we continued on, Trek kept bushwhacking to get over to the lake. Silly boy. We scrambled up Baker Peak - I'm glad it was a dry day for that. We passed by Lost Pond Shelter and Big Branch Shelter before ending up at USFS 10. Unfortunately I had bad knee pain as the day progressed, so my pace felt slower as the day progressed. It wasn't a difficult hike, other than the leaf covered rocks & roots, and mud. We saw spectacular foliage in Brattleboro, but in Manchester Center, the leaves had already fallen at the higher elevations. We saw a few backpackers out on the trail, most looking like they were just out for the weekend. Krummholz did bark at one woman (looked like a section hiker) that he was nervous about. Ack.

This was Krummholz's first hotel stay and he did great! He's a quiet boy (except when people spook him), and doesn't care about sounds around the hotel. He slept next to my bed and stayed settled for the night. We were planning on a short hike on Sunday to finish our remaining VT miles, but I decided to skip it due to my knee pain. The forecast was for 40 degrees and pouring rain on Sunday. Wet rocks and bad knees didn't seem like a good combination, so we drove home on Sunday morning.