The LT is not blazed for winter travel and very little of it is used in wintertime (Killington/Pico, Abe/Ellen, Camels Hump, Mansfield, Jay... and that's about it). I would guess fewer than twenty miles are regularly broken out.
First, I suspect that many more sections are regularly broken out well enough to follow such as Stratton, Bread Loaf, and some ponds. I found previous tracks on Worth and Gillespie among others. Bromley was well broken and I met a future GMC president out for a walk. I'll be interested in what Mr. James says to this.
I'm one of the LT maintainers and as I work to official standards my section probably is not that easy to follow. Blazes are no longer to be in sight of each other and if you clear only 8' high for a tunnel effect in summer that leaves people wading through branches once the snow gets deep. If you blaze at eye level the blazes often wind up at knee level or occasionally buried entirely. My section is mostly in open hardwoods so you don't have the cut corridors you can follow in thick softwoods but in winter you can see the blazes a lot farther off.
Back in the 60s, the NH4k were a lot like the Long Trail is/was - not blazed for winter, heavy use on some peaks and others maybe not climbed every winter. People planning to do a winter hike would go out in the fall to memorize the route, and put up survey tape at key points - some said this should be removed on your winter trip and others thought you were doing the world a favor by leaving it up. If you did lose the trail, group members would fan out to find it. Somehow people managed to get up them. Now that the 4k are climbed more often, that draws out people that would rather follow tracks than make them, and the growth feeds on itself.
I'm not quite sure why the same thing didn't happen with the Long Trail. It would seem to me that the total mileage and elevation for winter Long Trail and winter NH4k or Adk46 would be of the same order of magnitude, assuming that the Long Trail was hiked one direction with car spotting. A group effort instead of solo on the Long Trail could provide that car spotting in addition to help routefinding and trailbreaking. But even if most segments are done up-and-back effecting doubling the distance, the physical effort should be less than that of the 111/114, NE100, or NH100 which are routinely completed in winter. Apparently peak-bagging is more attractive than trail-bagging even to Vermonters.
Is this likely to change? Many GMCers have climbed the NH4k and Adk46 in winter so there is a level of interest and ability in winter hiking in VT. The GMC sections could promote winter hikes of the segments they maintain, and the GMC could sponsor winter hikes as fundraisers like they did with a fake porcupine last summer. Inn-to-inn hiking with shuttles like the Catamount Trail could be provided for those disinclined to backpack.
