king tut
New member
My friends Jen and Lara were interested in doing a hike this weekend, and since they are relatively new to hiking mountains, they let me choose the hike! I convinced them that Killington would be a good hike, mostly because it is the only 4,000 footer in Vermont that I have yet to hike, and I have hiked Camel's Hump and Mansfield at least five times each. So, wanting to do a new hike, we set our sights for Sunday. The weather forecast looked iffy for Saturday, but mostly sunny for Sunday, woo-hoo!
So saturday came around, and it turned out to be a spectacular day in the Burlington area. I got to ride my bike on the bike path, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I stopped at North Beach and soaked in some sun while I took a nap. Day turned into night, and since some old college friends were in town, we decided to go downtown to Church Street. I am not sure if this was the best way to carbo load, but at the time beer and gravy fries at 2 o'clock in the morning sounded like a fantastic idea.
Come 7:30 in the morning, It was apparent to me that my brilliant idea of carbo loading and sleep deprivation may not be the best pre-hike plan. But oh well, that is that they make large Dunkin Doughnuts coffee for. After rounding everyone up, we started down I89 towards central Vermont. A funny thing happened on the way down though, the sun slowly went away and large dark storm clouds took it's place. It's gotta just be a few passing storm clouds right? Hmmm, something seemed ominous here....
After about an hour and a 45 minutes of driving, I parked my car at the Bucklin trail head. The clouds were still dark and a light mist was falling, but hey the sun was going to come out at any time! We headed up the trail just before 10:30 in the morning, and I was very happy to be breathing in some fresh air and stretching out my legs. The trail starts off gently through the woods as it heads up 3.6 miles to the peak of Killington. The hike was actually a pretty gentle pitch in most spots, only rising sharply for the last .2 of a mile at the top. We reached the top in about 2 hours, and tried to take in the views, but the pesky clouds were still obscuring most of the views. We ate our lunch and hung out on top, with a hundred or so of our new mosquito friends. The first real sign of bugs that I have seen this year. As we finished our lunch, the clouds started to break and we were finally able to take in some views. We snapped a few pics and then started heading back down the mountain.
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The trip back down was pretty non eventful. We arrived back at the car a little before 3 o'clock, about a four and a half hour hike. I believe it was a little over 7 miles and 2500 vertical feet if I recall other descriptions of the hike correctly. I decided to take rte 100 back up to the Waterbury area, and it turned out to be a very nice drive. Scenic valleys, farms, mountains, and even a couple of cows. We made one stop along the way to take in this waterfall on the side of the road.
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After that, we tried to check out American Flatbread in Waitsfield, but unfortunately they were closed on Sundays
So we decided to stop for some less yummy pizza in Waterbury. Oh well, next time! It was a fun day, just wish the weather guy would get his forecast right next time... This hike finished up all the 4k's in Vermont and Maine for me, just 26 left to do in NH!
So saturday came around, and it turned out to be a spectacular day in the Burlington area. I got to ride my bike on the bike path, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I stopped at North Beach and soaked in some sun while I took a nap. Day turned into night, and since some old college friends were in town, we decided to go downtown to Church Street. I am not sure if this was the best way to carbo load, but at the time beer and gravy fries at 2 o'clock in the morning sounded like a fantastic idea.
Come 7:30 in the morning, It was apparent to me that my brilliant idea of carbo loading and sleep deprivation may not be the best pre-hike plan. But oh well, that is that they make large Dunkin Doughnuts coffee for. After rounding everyone up, we started down I89 towards central Vermont. A funny thing happened on the way down though, the sun slowly went away and large dark storm clouds took it's place. It's gotta just be a few passing storm clouds right? Hmmm, something seemed ominous here....
After about an hour and a 45 minutes of driving, I parked my car at the Bucklin trail head. The clouds were still dark and a light mist was falling, but hey the sun was going to come out at any time! We headed up the trail just before 10:30 in the morning, and I was very happy to be breathing in some fresh air and stretching out my legs. The trail starts off gently through the woods as it heads up 3.6 miles to the peak of Killington. The hike was actually a pretty gentle pitch in most spots, only rising sharply for the last .2 of a mile at the top. We reached the top in about 2 hours, and tried to take in the views, but the pesky clouds were still obscuring most of the views. We ate our lunch and hung out on top, with a hundred or so of our new mosquito friends. The first real sign of bugs that I have seen this year. As we finished our lunch, the clouds started to break and we were finally able to take in some views. We snapped a few pics and then started heading back down the mountain.
The trip back down was pretty non eventful. We arrived back at the car a little before 3 o'clock, about a four and a half hour hike. I believe it was a little over 7 miles and 2500 vertical feet if I recall other descriptions of the hike correctly. I decided to take rte 100 back up to the Waterbury area, and it turned out to be a very nice drive. Scenic valleys, farms, mountains, and even a couple of cows. We made one stop along the way to take in this waterfall on the side of the road.
After that, we tried to check out American Flatbread in Waitsfield, but unfortunately they were closed on Sundays
So we decided to stop for some less yummy pizza in Waterbury. Oh well, next time! It was a fun day, just wish the weather guy would get his forecast right next time... This hike finished up all the 4k's in Vermont and Maine for me, just 26 left to do in NH!
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