Date: 2007-08-13
From: Black Branch

To: Lower Cold River Road
Miles today: 18.5

It rained last night for several hours so I had to pack up a wet tent in the morning. My new Henry Shires Tarptent did fine however and I didn't find any leaks in our seam sealing job. I packed up inside the tent and immediately appreciated how much more space there was inside it compared to my Six Moon Designs tarp tent. No bears had bothered my food bags overnight so my hanging I go away with my rookie mistakes.It was fun to see Little Rock Pond again after 30+ years. Some of it was familiar to me and some was not. The little rocky island was very familiar from family camping trip taken in the late 1960's, and from my LT thru-hike in 1975. The rickety old arched bridge I remembered going to the island was of course no longer there. Beavers have placed a short dam at the outlet that has raised the water level in the lake about a full foot. The shelter looked very familiar and I am sure that Dad and I stayed there on a camping trip together in the late 1960's.The hike up to White Rocks Cliff side trail went slowly and was steep in places. The balsam fir smelled great however. I heard white-throated sparrows and Swainson's thrushes singing, along with a winter wren. The clear whistle of the sparrow's song is very much a high mountain sound. It is interesting to see the 5 thrush species separate here based on elevation. Wood thrush and veery are most common in the lower elevation mature hardwood forests. They are replaced by hermits in the middle elevation deciduous forests. Finally, in the higher elevation spruce-fir forests the Swainson's dominates in the large stands of mature conifers. Bicknell's thrushes dominate at the highest elevations where the trees are stunted (Krumholz) from abuse by the nearly constant winds and deep winter snows that last well into spring. I saw this progression of thrushes and heard all but Bicknell's as I hiked up towards White Rock Cliffs.I wanted to take the 0.2 mile side trail to the rim of White Rocks Cliffs but an active thunderstorm came up right then so I decided to keep going. This turned out to be a good decision because there was quite a bit of close lightning and some heavy rain.After crossing the Clarendon Gorge on a wobbly suspension bridge I took a brief detour at VT 103 to the Whistlestop Caf©, about a 10 minute walk from the trail. It had come highly recommended from some other hikers so I had to try one of their milkshakes and ordered a cheeseburger to go to take with me for dinner.Back on the trail, the first mile up to Clarendon Shelter was up a very steep and rocky gully that was a bit of a challenge. I remembered Clarendon Shelter from my 1975 LT hike and wanted to stay. Unfortunately, I also wanted to get a few more miles in to reduce the length of tomorrow's hike, so I kept going. The shelter is a rather unique leaning log structure in a very nice little grassy forest opening with plenty of tenting space all around.I hiked another 3 miles before finding a nice stealth site just beyond the Lower Cold River road crossing. Now just after dark, I finally got to eat my cheeseburger from the Whistlestop. Tomorrow will be a big climb over Killington Peak, VT's second highest mountain. I'd like to get to the Long Trail Inn at a reasonably early hour to meet Mom and Dad but that will be 15.4 rough miles up the trail.