20 miles of the Long Trail

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During my training for Wilderness Leader status in the Wilderness Progam at Saint Michael's College, my current and amazing residence, we hiked about 20 miles of the Long Trail divided up between two trips.

The first trip was in late October, we hiked up Mount Laraway down to Butternut Saddle and camped off of Corliss Camp. It was spectacular, the day we saw the firey colors of autumn's last rush and then we woke up the next morning to a layer of fresh, white snow!

The first day we did about 6-7miles, then hoofed it the next day about 8-9 miles across the many of Butternut Mntn.'s false summits and then into Devil's Gulch, which was full of pointy, sharp, soaked, frozen rocks tinged with moss. It was great, of course being the graceful one that I am I took a lot of spills because it was the most fun and quickest way to get down. Up to Bowen Mtn about 1000 or more stone steps were laid out, which seemed harder than hiking up a trail, especially after the end of a long day. The view from Bowen Summit was amazing: Mt. Mansfield, Butternut, Laraway, and others I have yet to learn the names of. It was breathtaking.

Our second outing I co-led with some of the other rookies. We hiked up the Nebraska Notch trail to Lake Mansfield, a lovely short hike that I strongly recommend at any time of the year, especially autumn. From our shelter we could see many of the peaks and a beautiful view of the sun and stars and lovely once the snow started. A short hike led us down a trail with a view of waterfalls and beaver dams. But more astonishing than that was Lake Mansfield. It was a pure mountain lake, surrounded on all sides by vertical peaks. It was calm, like glass, relfecting the mountains, and it was silent. I truly felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, even though we really weren't so far out there. The hike was easy, but it did get rather tricky on the way back because of the quickly formed ice, which once again I found and fell on. Just so everyone knew not to follow my footsteps of course.

All in all it wa an amazing experience and I cannot wait to hike the whole Long Trail, in the autumn of 2007 I plan to return to Nebraska notch for a weekend to take in the lovely views it gave us.

Since then I have passed my training and have gotten certified in Wilderness First Aid. I plan on taking my Wilderness First Responder as soon as possible, maybe in the summer or winter of 2007.

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