For almost a year, Una_dogger lived a few short miles away from Dorset Mountain in Vermont. Throughout that time we kept putting off visiting that peak, since it was "right there" and we could "do it any time," We'd heard that it wasn't much of a peak and an uninteresting hike. Enough time ended up passing that she moved to Massachusetts and we still hadn't summitted; now it would become a chore, my "green whale" as it were.
This weekend we happened to be in the area, coming back from a wedding on Lake George, and decided to finally get this 6-mile, 2400-foot trek out of the way. We went in expecting a slog on snowmobile and ATV paths to a boring summit.
We were so wrong about it. Dorset is a beautiful mountain and was really a terrific hike.
We started out by ogling Dorset Hollow. This remarkable area, situated to the south of the main Dorset peaks, is enclosed on three sides by ridges and full of beautiful woods, fields, and houses. We had clouds and sun, plenty of light, but I could imagine the area being very dark and spooky, with late sunrises and early sunsets given the geography.
After the last house we briefly explored going further up the road to see how far the Outback could go. I probably could have made it to where other folks have parked in the past (an open field on the right) or even further to the meadow, but since we had time constraints I didn't want to muck around and so parked right back at the end of Tower Road. It was 1:45pm when we stepped off.
The lower stretches of the forest road were rough and eroded, but the vivid spring green colors of the woods helped to make up for the footing. This road is trivial to follow, ascends at a moderate grade excellent for pushing yourself hard into a good heavy-breathing sweat, and it took us only about 15 minutes to get to the old tar-paper camp.
That ... was creepy. Nobody was there, but the presence of water hoses clearly shows it's used in summer as well as winter. We just kept on going by. This next section had the worst footing of the entire hike: loose eroded rock under a heavy layer of broken and decaying leaves. This slowed us down a bit as we tried not to slip or step into any holes.
We passed a small cairn which seemed to mark a route up a dry water runoff to the left. A bushwhack route up West Dorset, perhaps? The woods throughout this area were tall and dark, together with the ravine managing to keep the light out.
After more climbing, however, the woods suddenly thinned, lightened, and shrank back from the trail. We entered a region of what I called "false cols", as we knew we the route we were on would end at the height-of-land between Dorset and West Dorset, and we kept doing short, steep climbs to a flat areas. An old wood stove was visible off to the side, a remnant perhaps of the fire tower warden's cabin? Or some hunting camp?
At an hour from the car the trail suddenly ended at a T-junction in the real col. To our left, the route up from Danby Four Corners was two brown strips through bright green grass, and looked like an absolutely beautiful trail. Una_dogger couldn't believe it - it would have been a terrific after-work hike or mountain bike route for her back when she was local.
The trees up here were thin. In our 1500' of climbing it felt like we'd gone back almost three weeks in time. The ferns were just leaving the fiddlehead stage, the birches only beginning to leaf out, the greens so brilliant and almost glowing against the grey clouds.
A turn to the right and we were on an ATV trail that made for a pair of smooth footpaths. At the first fork we decided to stay left, and head for the true summit first, south summit on the return. When we came to the second fork, I got a little confused; none of my beta had mentioned a second fork! After some time spent with map, compass, and GPS, we decided the right was some kind of cut-off and we'd take it and see where we ended up.
This turned out to be an excellent decision. This trail felt "young", over moss and logs, an uneven forest floor, not eroded. The woods were tall and gnarled. The forest felt old here, even though the sizes of the trees implied otherwise. The footpath eventualy became more clear and packed down, but it did not diminish the beauty of this area. Moose sign (brown cairns) were everywhere.
We came right to the signed junction, turned left, and after a short walk full of many "this is beautiful!" exclamations, found the summit, the water jar, the old cabin (?) timbers, and the canister, 1:40 from the car. We signed in and took pictures, I provided a new zip-loc bag for the register, and we decided that had we gone straight at the unknown fork we would have arrived here from the other direction.
Then it was back to the junction and beyond, through a muddy area with some animal tracks, and then we were at what I called "doorknob junction". Here was the trail back to the first fork, the trail to the south summit, and another mysterious trail to the east. A few knobby photos and it was up to see the tower remains and the infamous grill. We had our one view of the day from here, looking down a narrow footpath we could see northward to the valley below, bathed in sunlight.
The footpath was short and steep but fun as such trails often are. Soon enough we were on the trail back to the first fork, then at the col, descending past the camp, and finally after 3:25 were back at the car. A beautiful hike - Dorset is definitely underrated. The entire area from the col and up was just a wonderful place to see and be a part of, and was worth the uninteresting ATV road to get there. We finished the day with delicious wood-fired Goodmans American Pie pizza in Ludlow.
#92 of the NE100, and the home stretch is coming later this summer.
Photo album from the hike!
This weekend we happened to be in the area, coming back from a wedding on Lake George, and decided to finally get this 6-mile, 2400-foot trek out of the way. We went in expecting a slog on snowmobile and ATV paths to a boring summit.
We were so wrong about it. Dorset is a beautiful mountain and was really a terrific hike.
We started out by ogling Dorset Hollow. This remarkable area, situated to the south of the main Dorset peaks, is enclosed on three sides by ridges and full of beautiful woods, fields, and houses. We had clouds and sun, plenty of light, but I could imagine the area being very dark and spooky, with late sunrises and early sunsets given the geography.
After the last house we briefly explored going further up the road to see how far the Outback could go. I probably could have made it to where other folks have parked in the past (an open field on the right) or even further to the meadow, but since we had time constraints I didn't want to muck around and so parked right back at the end of Tower Road. It was 1:45pm when we stepped off.
The lower stretches of the forest road were rough and eroded, but the vivid spring green colors of the woods helped to make up for the footing. This road is trivial to follow, ascends at a moderate grade excellent for pushing yourself hard into a good heavy-breathing sweat, and it took us only about 15 minutes to get to the old tar-paper camp.
That ... was creepy. Nobody was there, but the presence of water hoses clearly shows it's used in summer as well as winter. We just kept on going by. This next section had the worst footing of the entire hike: loose eroded rock under a heavy layer of broken and decaying leaves. This slowed us down a bit as we tried not to slip or step into any holes.
We passed a small cairn which seemed to mark a route up a dry water runoff to the left. A bushwhack route up West Dorset, perhaps? The woods throughout this area were tall and dark, together with the ravine managing to keep the light out.
After more climbing, however, the woods suddenly thinned, lightened, and shrank back from the trail. We entered a region of what I called "false cols", as we knew we the route we were on would end at the height-of-land between Dorset and West Dorset, and we kept doing short, steep climbs to a flat areas. An old wood stove was visible off to the side, a remnant perhaps of the fire tower warden's cabin? Or some hunting camp?
At an hour from the car the trail suddenly ended at a T-junction in the real col. To our left, the route up from Danby Four Corners was two brown strips through bright green grass, and looked like an absolutely beautiful trail. Una_dogger couldn't believe it - it would have been a terrific after-work hike or mountain bike route for her back when she was local.
The trees up here were thin. In our 1500' of climbing it felt like we'd gone back almost three weeks in time. The ferns were just leaving the fiddlehead stage, the birches only beginning to leaf out, the greens so brilliant and almost glowing against the grey clouds.
A turn to the right and we were on an ATV trail that made for a pair of smooth footpaths. At the first fork we decided to stay left, and head for the true summit first, south summit on the return. When we came to the second fork, I got a little confused; none of my beta had mentioned a second fork! After some time spent with map, compass, and GPS, we decided the right was some kind of cut-off and we'd take it and see where we ended up.
This turned out to be an excellent decision. This trail felt "young", over moss and logs, an uneven forest floor, not eroded. The woods were tall and gnarled. The forest felt old here, even though the sizes of the trees implied otherwise. The footpath eventualy became more clear and packed down, but it did not diminish the beauty of this area. Moose sign (brown cairns) were everywhere.
We came right to the signed junction, turned left, and after a short walk full of many "this is beautiful!" exclamations, found the summit, the water jar, the old cabin (?) timbers, and the canister, 1:40 from the car. We signed in and took pictures, I provided a new zip-loc bag for the register, and we decided that had we gone straight at the unknown fork we would have arrived here from the other direction.
Then it was back to the junction and beyond, through a muddy area with some animal tracks, and then we were at what I called "doorknob junction". Here was the trail back to the first fork, the trail to the south summit, and another mysterious trail to the east. A few knobby photos and it was up to see the tower remains and the infamous grill. We had our one view of the day from here, looking down a narrow footpath we could see northward to the valley below, bathed in sunlight.
The footpath was short and steep but fun as such trails often are. Soon enough we were on the trail back to the first fork, then at the col, descending past the camp, and finally after 3:25 were back at the car. A beautiful hike - Dorset is definitely underrated. The entire area from the col and up was just a wonderful place to see and be a part of, and was worth the uninteresting ATV road to get there. We finished the day with delicious wood-fired Goodmans American Pie pizza in Ludlow.
#92 of the NE100, and the home stretch is coming later this summer.
Photo album from the hike!
