Date: 2008-08-24
From: Madonna Peak

To: Tenting near Taylor Lodge
Miles today: 0.0

Long Trail 12.9 milesToday started very early at about 4:30am. I wanted coffee! :-)I made my coffee and watched the sun come up over the mountains while I enjoyed that good strong brew.I made Yolanda Vega some coffee too and she finally started stirring.I was all excited about climbing Mt Mansfield...the highest point in VT at almost 4,200 feet high. Good morning, world!We were packed and walking shortly after sunrise and stopped long enough at Sterling Pond Shelter to sign the register, then walked on.I was hungry again by the time we got to Smuggler's Notch, so we sat down and I had first lunch.It was all uphill after that to the chin of Mansfield. There were some very steep climbs and I was having a blast.We stopped at a nice stream and filled up with water, then continued the climb.It was probably the hardest climb I've done besides Katahdin. We got to the summit about 3 hours after we started and was met with a nice cooling breeze...we needed it! :-) Yolanda Vega on Mt MansfieldYolanda Vega and I sat around the summit for about an hour before moving on. I was just about completely dried out by then.You can drive to Mansfield, so there were lots of people up there. When we got to the Forehead part of Mansfield, we left the car people and were alone on the mountain again.We got to a bad weather trail. Yolanda Vega asked which way I wanted to go. There wasn't any bad weather. :-)She said it was a very steep descent. It was! :-)It wasn¢t as long as Katahdin, but it was as tough a descent as Katahdin. There were even a few places where I threw my hiking poles down below just so I could use my hands better. I almost never do that!I guess it's a good thing my ol' buddy Chief didn't do this Trail. I might not have had an ol' buddy anymore. Ha! ;-)When we got down, we stopped by Twin Brooks Tenting Area, but they only had wood platforms and I'd just as soon not sleep on wood...it's too hard. :-)We walked on and decided to go to Taylor Lodge. That shelter was only another couple miles.I walked ahead a little and came to a big beaver pond. I didn't actually see the beaver, but I saw a swirl of the water as he dove under. I waited in hopes of seeing him, but he never surfaced. When Yolanda Vega caught up, we walked on together.We climbed a pretty good hill and I was looking at this dark spot in the woods. I could see by the color that it might be a moose. I then saw two of it legs just as it turned and ran away. Turns out it was two yearling moose...about half grown.We both saw them run off and started walking on when I spotted another moose...a big moose!I walked on and saw it was just standing there watching me. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't running off, then I saw a small calf.Momma was keeping a close eye on me and looked a little too alert for me to walk by, so I told Yolanda Vega to back up a little. We did...about 50 feet and pretty soon the momma started eating on some hobble bushes.We decided we could probably walk by without alarming the momma moose too much if we talked to her while we walked by. We did that and she stopped eating and just stood there a little more relaxed this time as we walked by. That's when we saw she had two calves suckling on her.That was five moose we saw...all within just a short distance!That makes my count for animals on this year's walk at 17 bear, 6 moose and 1 porcupine...along with all the deer I've seen. Been a good year so far and I still have all of NH and Maine to walk yet, and the rest of this Long Trail diversion. :-)I'm tenting near Taylor Lodge. It's a shelter with lots of wire wrapped around it to keep the porcupines from eating the wood.Oh yeah, I heard from Lee Perry about me going north on the Long Trail. That was my mistake...I was going south, but got so used to writing "north" for my AT walk.You just can't fool a map maker. :-)I can hear a moose out walking around not far from my tent. It's dark...sure hope he doesn't step on me. :-)Another great day on this Long Trail diversion from my Appalachian Trail walk.