What was supposed to be an easy recovery hike from the hike up Mt. Marcy the day before, turned out to be an agonizing ordeal. Apparently I should have looked at the beta for this trail in a little more detail before setting out… The Vermont Long Trail to the top of Mt.Mansfield is 2.3 miles one way – that I did read. What I didn’t pay attention to was that the elevation gain in those 2.3 miles up was 2800′, making this the steepest hike of all the 4 that I was doing on this trip   :^(

Again, I started out early but the humidity in the forest leading up to the top of Mt. Mansfield was oppressive – it was already in the 80’s and I had sweat dripping down my arms the whole way up. Then the bugs arrived as soon as you slowed down so I had to get out the bug spray and take care of that. Once you get out of the treeline, the views opened up and a nice breeze arrived. It was a bit of rock and boulder hopping to the summit. As an alternative to get to this highpoint, one can take the gondola up from the ski area or a car up the Stowe Auto Road. By either of those methods your total trip along the ridge to the summit is 1.5 miles to close to 3.0 miles.

When viewed from a distance, the summit ridge of Mt. Mansfield appears to have a “Forehead,” “Nose,” “Chin” and “Adams Apple.” The summit at 4,393′ is on the “Chin.”