VT 12 Woodstock - Nobo 1720

This post is from June 24, 2015.   The GPS tracking of this hike can be found at:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/814183717 

Today I slack packed from the near the base of the Killington, VT ski area (VT Route 100) to Woodstock, VT (VT Route 12).  The day started early with the drive with truck and mounted motorcycle from Maine to Woodstock where I dropped the motorcycle and the end-of-day trailhead.  Then I drove the 24 road miles around to Killington and parked the truck and prepped and started the hike.  My start from Maine was later than I had hoped and the shuttling took longer than I planned and I had some difficulty locating the AT trailhead near Killington.  That all added up to a 10:50am start.  That is really too late for a 20 mile day, so I really had to rush the whole 20 miles to make sure I had time to drive the motorcycle back to Killington and

mount it back on the truck before dark.   As it turned out I finished the 20

miles at 6:45 so I had plenty of time.  I was quite exhausted from the

relentless 20 mile push through some constantly up and down terrain.    It

did not have any big individual elevation gains, it just was always up and down.  It was also excessively muddy from the heavy thunderstorms of the night before.  This slowed me considerably having to constantly hike around huge wet areas on the trail.

This is a view looking south at Killington a couple of hours into the hike:

This is a view looking northward at about mile 15 of the hike into the Vermont mountains:

Finally, this is the first view of VT 12 approaching it from the south.  My bike was parked down in that valley and awaited my arrival.