Pine Cobble to Bromley

DAY 1 - PINE COBBLE TRAIL TO HELL HOLLOW BROOK

Waking up at the Holiday Inn at North Adams we packed up our gear for the next two weeks. Thanks to the flexibility of my mom, Melanie, we knew we only needed to start with gear to get us the 19 miles from Pine Cobble Road to RT-9. My dad, Bill, had lent us a couple of day packs in case we opted the go forward with this plan. Shuttling our packs ahead to Rt-9 was something we had debated for quite some time. The stretch from Pine Cobble to Congdon was 13.3 miles (~7.5 hours). Based on our preliminary planning we knew ending our first day at Congdon Shelter would put us behind schedule, so we had planned to try to extend the that day onto Melville Nauheim. This meant we were facing a 19.2 mile day one, which by our estimates would take 11.25 hours. Going into the hike we wanted to avoid days that clocked in over 11 hours, but in this case it seemed like it was our only option. Rather than wearing out our legs trying to achieve this, we opted to use the day packs during the first 17 miles. There we would meet Melanie and swap our day packs for our full size packs for the rest of the hike.

We set out from Pine Cobble Road at about 7:00 in the morning just as we had planned. It took a bit of looping around a hilly suburban neighborhood to find the trail head (we had missed it on the way in). The Pine Cobble trail was marked with a little green sign with yellow font just off to the right side of the road. There was a small parking lot just across the street from from the trail head where we did a final gear check. Looking at our estimates we figured we would arrive at RT-9 at about 5:00, but as we were carrying day packs we told Melanie to plan on being there around 3 just in case we arrived early. We took a quick selfie at the trailhead and then headed out into the woods.

It wasn't but 3 minutes later that Melanie came running up the trail. For some reason in the rush of planning it had never crossed our minds to begin by hiking with my mom. Given that we had asked her to spend 10 hours in western MA waiting for us to finish Section 1 of the long trail, it made perfect sense to have her spend some time with us. She hiked along with us until we reached the junction where a side trail splits off from the Pine Cobble Trail. This side trail leads towards the Appalachian Trail (AT) and the southern terminus of the Long Trail (LT). Haley and I set off towards the terminus while my mom continued along the Pine Cobble Trail towards a vista.

Skipping side trails would become the par for the course for Haley and I. On many occasions over the next two weeks, we would be presented with the opportunity to hike to vistas and summits. These often fell within a quarter of a mile of the trail, but in in interest of time we would often opt to skip them. It helped our spirits to have done training hikes in the north, so we knew there were many gorgeous views awaiting us. We also knew that with our aggressive plan we were covering enough ground each day to reach a couple of views from the trail as well.

We stopped for our first snack break at the border of VT and MA which marks the beginning of the Long Trail. There was an AT section hiker there who had been out for a couple of weeks and had just finished the Massachusetts segment of the AT. We asked him to take a picture of us in front of the trail sign and then we signed in at our first register. We then continued on towards Seth Warner Shelter for lunch. Where some of the shelters fall immediately on the trail, many are on junction trails that take you about a quarter mile off the main trail. Similar to the vistas and summits, we would often skip these as well. This was the case with Seth Warner, so we opted to plop down on a couple of logs at the junction and ate our lunch(PB&J on a bagel would be our lunch of choice for the next two weeks). After finishing our lunch we proceeded on towards Congdon Shelter.

Congdon was the first shelter we passed on the trail. For the first 100 miles of the LT it coincides with the AT. Congdon, like many of the shelters on the AT, was an open faced lean-to. It was a bunk style shelter with a table in the middle. It looked to be able to sleep about 8 comfortably. Knowing we were getting close to RT-9, we snapped a quick picture and took our second snack on the go. We arrived at RT-9 shortly after Melanie had arrived. It was roughly 3:00 and we were well ahead of schedule. Feeling fresh, and still making good time, we still wanted to keep the pack swap to 30 or 45 minutes. Throughout our training hikes Haley had been using a pair of La Sportiva Wildcat 3s. Hearing about how wet the Long Trail was though, and after dealing with some rain on our training hikes, she opted to try out the Wildcat GTX. She hoped they would have a similar fit as well as the waterproofing benefits of Gore-tex. However the shoe was quite unforgiving and had given her some nasty heel blisters within the first 17 miles. Knowing we were facing an extremely dry stretch of weather she opted to switch back to her Wildcat 3s. Those shoes already been used for couple hundred miles of hiking at this point, so we were a bit nervous about how they would fair towards the end of the hike, but she decided it was definitely worth the risk to avoid blisters. We also knew we'd see my dad in just over a week and if we needed to, we'd have an opportunity swap shoes we could then. Melanie also gave Haley a few of her DoTerra oils to help with the blisters that had already formed.

After doing one final gear check we continued into Section 2 of the Long Trail. This area was familiar as we had done the stretch from RT-9 to Story Spring Shelter on Memorial Day weekend as a training hike. We remembered that the hike out of RT-9 was fairly steep, but with our training it was significantly easier this time. We reached the junction to Melville Nauheim Shelter, but still feeling fresh opted to continue on. We had remembered that there was a stretch of campsites between Melville Naheim and Goddard Shelter, and figured we could land at one of those. On the last morning of the training hike we had stopped at Hell Hollow Brook for breakfast, and knew there was a fire pit there. We arrived at Hell Hollow Brook as the sun was setting and set up camp and cooked some dinner. Rolling into our tent, we pulled out the Section 2 guidebook to review our next day. Reviewing the description for the day's hike we realized that tenting at Hell Hollow was prohibited in order to protect the Bennington water supply. Having hiked 22 miles, the last 5 with full weight, operating on four hours of sleep, and with camp fully set up we opted to stay put, but feeling guilty we committed to waking up early to minimize any impact we'd have.

DAY 2 - HELL HOLLOW BROOK TO BLACK BROOK

We set out from Black Brook towards Stratton Road. Stratton-Arlington Road would mark the first road walk since RT-9. Stratton-Arlington Road also marks the end of Section 2 of the Long Trail and the start of Section 3. The day before we had planned to tent in a field on the road, but when we stumbled upon the Black Brook tent sites we opted to camp there. I've always had a fondness for camping near streams and brooks, so I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.

From the road, we ascended Stratton Mountain. At the summit, we met the caretaker Hugh. Back before the days of fly-overs and satellites he would climb the summit tower to survey the surrounding areas for fires. Having spent the past 40 some odd years atop Stratton he had some quite entertaining stories of his role first as a fire marshal and now as a caretaker. He had been warning AT hikers to be careful when traveling through Baxter State Park as Scott Yurek's recent AT FKT (fastest known time) had brought a lot of unwanted attention from the BSP Authority, and the BSP had released a statement on facebook essentially threatening to secede from the AT. There was also a father-son pair who were doing trail maintenance. The father, Frank, was part of the AMC trail patrol and had been tasked with clearing the side trails around Stratton.

Like many other southern summits, Stratton is wooded, providing no surrounding views from the peak. So Haley and I ascended the fire tower to observe the surrounding mountains, forests, and lakes. Hugh had added labels marking landmarks in NH to the east and NY to the west. Knowing we were close to the ski resort, we opted to check our email to see if there were any updates from Haley's parents who were resupplying us that evening. There was nothing from them, but there was a message from my mom saying that she had found my wallet in between the seats of the car. I wouldn't have an opportunity to get it until about a week later, but it was a relief nonetheless. Done with technology, I put my phone away and descended the fire tower and continued on towards Stratton Pond.

On our way down to Stratton Pond we started hiking behind a large quiet fellow. We suspected that he was the mythical "Sasquatch" that had been mentioned by other thru-hikers on there trail. He stopped to resupply water out of the spring at the pond, and we stopped quickly to take a few pictures of the pond. We then proceeded along the planks that skirted the right side of the pond. Eventually the forest broke to a fairly fresh dirt road.

After a fairly long walk on the road we reached an auto gate. The gate had a sign warning northbound hikers that upon reaching that point, they may have passed Prospect Rock. At Prospect Rock there was another nice lookout that overlooked the valley below. Here we ran into a couple guys who had been out for a weekend hike. The same weekend we started our hike, my dad (Bill) and sister (Brianna) were running in the Cascade Crest 100. I was able to find out that my dad and sister had finished their 100 mile race. Anxiously awaiting their results, I checked my phone again and found that they had finished. Also, at this time I also checked the hike email again and seeing nothing more in the inbox we continued on. We knew we had about another hour and a half before we met Haley's parents. My feet were already getting tired from the past couple high mileage days, so I was anticipating the nice early end to the day.

One of my favorite things about the JMT is that cell reception is generally non-existent for the vast majority of the hike. In this day and age, having cell phones constantly, I feel that it is hard to escape or be very private. That being said, having sparse cell access in southern Vermont certainly came in handy. It wasn't but a quarter mile after Prospect Rock that on a whim I checked my work email just in case someone tried to contact us there. Sure enough we had an email from Haley's father, Mark, saying they had arrived to Bromley Shelter and that he wasn't sure where Beaver Lodge was. I immediately knew the mistake I had made. They were originally supposed to meet us at Spruce Peak Shelter, but in planning I had noticed that there was a landmark on Google Maps called Beaver Lodge where they could park. We had instructed her parents to then hike south from that point to Spruce Peak Shelter. They dropped off the car at the correct parking area but followed the obvious trail signs for the Long Trail. Unfortunately those signs led north, up Bromley Mountain towards Bromley Shelter.

After a quick call things were sorted out and Haley and I figured out that we would be able to extend our day and make it to Bromley Shelter. Given that our feet were tired and we were looking forward to an early end to our day we were less than enthused at first, but then we realized we could cash in our banked time at the Inn at the Long Trail. We got to Bromley Shelter just as the sun was setting but Debbie and Mark had plenty of awesome food ready for us. We gorged ourselves on a spread which included burgers, sweet potatoes, salad, smores, fruit, cookies and candy. Needless to say, we were completely spoiled on this hike.

All in all, we had hiked 60 miles in the first three days. Given that we would need to average 16 miles a day, having 12 miles "banked up" already we felt really strong and excited to continue on. The stretch ahead would be the longest self-supported on the hike and in six days we would be meeting Amanda at Lincoln Gap. The next day we would begin the next stretch of our hike, which would bring us to Killington and the Inn at the Long Trail three days later.

DAY 3 - BLACK BROOK TO BROMLEY SHELTER

Michael TiddSeptember 10, 2015vermont, long trail