LT Trailwork and Ascutney (28-30 Sept.)

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Joined
Jan 15, 2013
Messages
151
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Location
Vernon, Conn.
Last weekend (28-30 Sept.) I joined another trail work weekend with the Connecticut Section of the Green Mountain Club. We maintain the Long Trail in between Glastenbury Tower and Kelly Stand Road. (The LT is also the AT there.) This time we were based at Story Spring Shelter. The weather was great all weekend, although since it had rained a lot earlier in the week, there was a lot of mud.

On Friday I arrived at the secret trail after dark and hiked it into Story Spring. There were six of us for this trip.

On Saturday I blazed. I went north from Story Spring with a can of white paint and a brush and refreshed blazes. This is the first time I've blazed. Mostly I just touched up existing blazes. In a few places there were blazes very close to each other and I just refreshed one of them. In a few places I added blazes to fill in gaps, or create one of the LT's many missing turn blazes. I went all the way to Kelly Stand Road, did the blazes on the little road walk (even though nobody seems to be sure if that's in our section or not), and started blazing southbound. I ran out of paint soon after turning around, and just hiked back to the shelter, helping fellow section member Kevin remove a blowdown along the way.

We met several AT flipflopping through hikers (SOBO now). They did not like the mud, which was, admittedly, bad even for the Long Trail.

On Sunday I hiked out, drove north, and climbed Ascutney by the Weathersfield Trail. This was my fifth time on Ascutney. Weathersfield Trail goes up the mountain steeply from the south, passing Cascade Falls about halfway up. Even though it was in Vermont after a week of rain, there was very little mud there. There were a lot of people, both hiking up (I took the last spot in the parking area) and, near the top, from having driven most of the way up on the access road.

At the Cascade Falls I hiked down along the side of it to get a good view. The trail only takes you to the top of the falls. If you do this hike yourself I recommend crossing the brook and descending next to the falls on the right side of the river; the views are better on that side.

The day was a little hazy, under cumulus clouds, so at the observation tower I wasn't sure I could make out Mansfield or Washington, but peaks such as Moosilauke and Monadnock were very visible.

On the way down I visited the West Peak Vista, where I got some hikers interested in the New England Fifty Finest list, but skipped the falls.

Here's a Facebook gallery for the trail work.
Here are the pictures for Ascutney.

--

Cumulus

NE111 in my 50s: 115/115 (67/67, 46/46, 2/2)
NE111 in my 60s: 59/115 (47/67, 11/46, 1/2)
NEFF: 50/50; Cat35: 39/39; WNH4K: 40/48; NEHH 89/100
LT NB 2009; CT NB 2017

"I don't much care where [I get to] --" said Alice, "-- so long as I get somewhere," ...
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
- Lewis Carroll
 
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