Lowell Lake in Southern Vermont

We made a short trip to Vermont to visit my wife's sister, who came over from Boston, and to see the Vermont Country Store in Weston.  I gave the ladies some time to themselves by getting in a nice, gentle hike in nearby Lowell Lake State Park, which was a real treat.  Plus it gave me time to work off my disappointment about the town of Weston being out of ice cream!  How does a town in Vermont run out of ice cream?  For months, I have been lusting after the maple ice cream that my spouse told me that the Vermont Country Store is famous for.

The park is in the southern (skinny) part of the Green Mountain State.  The map below marks the location with a red star.

And this image shows my track and direction of travel (counter clockwise).  For some reason, my inReach didn't capture the first quarter mile of so of my route, so I drew it in.  The total distance of the hike was about 3.8 miles.  Note the large wetlands at the northern and southern end of the lakes.  The starting and ending point of the hike is marked by the star at the top of the image.

Much of the forest along the hike was conifers, but there were also many areas of deciduous trees.  Vermont's legendary foliage must have peaked about a week before.  It was quite lovely in New York on the drive up towards Albany.  There were patches of color along the hike, but the sugar maples were all bare.  The trail along the west side of the lake was more of a woods road, and was very easy to walk.

Before long, I had my first views of Lowell Lake.  Can you imagine what this hill would have looked like at peak color?  I guess I need to come back to see for sure.

The trail along the southern and eastern sides of the lake was a traditional narrow foot path, going through a mixture of deciduous

and coniferous forests.

My favorite tree is the white (paper) birch.  Despite the temptation, never peel the bark of a life birch, as it will girdle and kill the tree.  You wouldn't like having your skin peeled off, would you?  Didn't think so!

Along the southern end of the lake is a large wetland area.

Much of the path along the east side of the lake had water views.  The lake also has three islands, as you can see on the photo of the track.

Those colorful leaves end up as Mother Nature's new fall carpet.

As I walked along to the north, I saw this group of five women out kayaking.  I could hear them chatting about their lives, and those of their friends, as I hiked along through the woods.

Near the end of the hike, I turned to the west to head back to my car through the forest.

I liked visiting the Vermont Country Store - although I still can't believe that I missed out on maple ice cream - but I really enjoyed getting away from stores for a couple of hours to enjoy a lovely hike.

Pre-Picnic Hike

A week ago Sunday, the Old Dominion Appalachian Trail Club (ODATC) had our annual picnic at Powhatan State Park on the James River.  Before the picnic, about 20 of us got together for a 5.7 mile hike on a warm October day.  This park is a great resource.  In addition to the river and lots of hiking trails, there are campgrounds and a special canoe campground.  It is also a good place to see wildlife, although with 20 of us tromping along, spotting elusive wild creatures was a long shot.

Here is the route of our hike, starting and ending at the star on the left.  You can see that the park is a mixture of fields and mostly deciduous forest, with a lot of edge.

I snapped a few photos as we hiked along, beginning with the James River at the start of the hike.  Our post-hike picnic was right along the river.

We moved out through heavy forest along the river.

I imagine that this was once someone's home.  I wonder what their life was like?

You can see that there were enough of us that we got strung out over quite a distance.

Walking isn't the only way to move along in this park.

Here is a view across one of the fields.

For a hiking group, what could be better before a delicious picnic than a hike?  This one was a lot of fun.

Great Hike? Rogers That!

The last weekend of September, a friend and I had made plans to return to Shackleford Banks for three days of backpacking, birding, and shelling.  But he had to cancel at the last moment, and while I considered going by myself, it just didn't feel that appealing.  Luckily, a "Plan B" appeared: three days of backpacking in the Mount Rogers - Grayson Highlands area of Southwestern Virginia with Virginia Backpackers.

The trip was full, but I joined the wait list and got added when others dropped out.  Six of us ended up going, and I must say, a great time was had by all.  We had three days of sunny fall weather - warm days near 70 degrees F. and cool nights down to about the freezing point.

It's a long drive - over 300 miles - to get to the trailhead from Richmond.  The red star marks the location of the hike.

Here is a track of the hike, which was about 15 miles.  We started and ended at the red arrow at the bottom, and generally went in a clockwise direction as indicated by the blue arrows.  We camped Friday night up on the ridge at about 5,300 feet.  Some of the group hiked to the heavily forested summit of Virginia's highest peak, but I just went to the spring to get water.  The second night, we hiked 7.5 miles to our camping spot near the Wise Shelter on the Appalachian Trail, indicated by the blue star.

Here is our merry band of six at the start of the hike Friday afternoon.

With the long drive to and fro, we only had a few hours to hike Friday and Sunday, so Saturday was the bulk of the hiking.  We went at a moderate pace, not too fast, not too slow.  I last backpacked here five years ago this month and it felt great to be here again - and I'll be back.  This was my first hike with this Meet-up Group.  I'll be back!

As I said, the weather was about perfect, and the company was good as well.  All six of us like to hike and backpack, and we traded stories of trips past, and possibly future, as well as some gear recommendations.  We saw little wildlife, but I did hear northern critters like red squirrels, red-breasted nuthatches, and black capped chickadees, and we did see the wild ponies for which this area is known far and wide.

We also had long-horned steers munching around our second campsite, but these huge animals stayed far away from us.  And we had the great scenery of Virginia's high mountain country.  These are the highest eastern mountains north of the Smokies and south of the Whites.

Here are a few photos of some of the group on Friday - June and John:

Moving through "Fat Man's Squeeze" on the AT:

Yours truly on the trail:

Mount Rogers, in the distance, is covered in spruce.  It is more like Canada than the rest of Virginia.  It is about 5,600 feet higher than Richmond in elevation.

Most of the hike in was open, but now and then, we got to trek through some northerly forests.

We got to our camping area, a high elevation open plateau with great views to the south and southwest, about 4:00, and got camp set up. I brought my one man tent, because with a big group, I knew I might have limited space to set it up.

Then, three of the crew hiked to the top of Mount Rogers and its spruce-covered summit.  I collected water - a half mile walk each way and 30 minutes to collect and filter the water from the slowly running spring near Thomas Knob shelter - and walked back to camp.  We made our dinners, chatted for a while, looked at the stars - nice despite a bright moon that was about 70% of full - and hit the sack.  In the morning, I was up early to catch the sunrise behind the mountains near us.

Soon enough, the others started getting up.  Good morning, June!

Breakfast time!  Note the little chairs that the two on the left are in?  The are called Cripple Creek.  I definitely plan on getting one.  They weigh about 1.5 pounds, but will save you hours of standing in camp because usually, there is nothing to sit in at camp when one backpacks.

We hit the trail, heading more or less to the east for the start towards the AT at Big Pine Mountain.  I thought that this huge rock jutting out was pretty neat.

We took a "packs off" break at Big Pine Mountain, elevation 5,000 feet, then headed towards the Scales for a lunch break.

The Scales is an interesting place.  There are a lot of these long-horned cattle there.  I remember this place from when Hawkeye and I backpacked here five years ago.  That trip and this one were two of my most fun backpacking trips ever.  Some of these large cattle also roamed around where we camped later this night.  We could even hear them calling to each other as it got dark.

A lot of the hike Saturday passed through the open country that this area is known for, with its sweeping vistas.

Here, we have reached one of the many cattle and pony gates throughout the area.  They make it more difficult for stock animals to get into areas where the Forest Service doesn't want them to go.

When I was here, 9/29 - 10/1, the trees were just starting to change.

Saturday night, we camped near Wise Shelter on the AT.  It was a great camping spot.  There was a creek to get water from (and lull you to sleep),

a lot of tent sites over the mostly open area,

and firewood (if one scrounged around enough) and a fire pit for a great campfire.

It got to below freezing but I slept like a log in my cozy new sleeping bag (which I love), only waking once when a group of coyotes began howling about 1AM.

One of the group slept in the Wise Shelter, which was about 300 meters up the trail.  Unlike a lot of the AT shelters that I've seen, this one was just steps from the trail.  A few of us waited here for the rest of the group before we started hiking in earnest.

The privy for the shelter is also just meters from the trail.  Not much privacy here, is there?

 There is actually a private association that manages the ponies here!

Our short (3 miles) hike out was mostly through forest,

but we did climb up Wilburn Ridge where I got a nice shot of the rest of my group.  Do we look happy?  That's because we are!  Great group, and great trip.  Thanks to our leaders, George and Sandra, for organizing it!

Shortly before we finished, we came upon a final two ponies grazing in the forest.

I would have loved to go back to Shackleford Banks, but one can't beat a trip to the Mount Rogers area.  It was a fabulous three days of great hiking, with good companionship to boot.  Plus ponies!  I do believe that I shall come back here in June to catch the rhododendrons in bloom.