July 30, 2014 - LT Section to Journey's End

We are riding four hours, round trip, to hike only 2.6 miles on the Long Trail. The section starts at VT Route 105 at the top of North Jay Pass and continues to the end of the LT at the Canadian Border. At which point we will take Journey’s End Trail, 1.3 miles to the parking lot. Finding the parking lot at Journey’s End for the truck was not very difficult even with the absence of signage. We decided to park at an old log landing .01 miles from the actual parking. The Journey’s End parking really only had room for 1 car. There was no visible signage stating it was the start of the Journey’s End trail. You had to walk on a trail for 20 yards or so before there were signs for the trail. We then head to the height of North Jay Pass to start the hike. It was probably in the mid-50s with some clouds in the sky. The hike up to Carlton Mountain was uneventful except for the ever present mud. It had rain very hard on Monday so it’s wasn’t much of a surprise. On top of Carlton there is a side trail to a view site, limited because of tree growth, which look’s south toward the Jay range.  We started our descend off Carlton Mountain toward the Canadian Border, and what did we fine, what appeared to be horse manure. There was not just one pile but a huge amount along the trail for at least .25 miles and then it disappeared. The trail to Canadian Border had a few bumps but the majority of it has a downward slope off the mountain. The border just appears without any warning, except today; right on the Vermont side of the border there was a thru hike sleep on the ground without a tent. He just kept on sleeping as we took pictures of the border, which is a cleared area about 100 or so feet wide. The last time we were here there was very little growth, now it is starting to very brow over. From the border there was no signage pointing toward the Journey’s End Trail, we followed what appeared to be a path and finally found blue marks on a tree a way’s down the trail. The trail to the Journey’s End Camp was very muddy and appeared to not have had any water bar work in years. We met a couple from New Jersey just before the camp telling us how muddy it was on the lower part of the trail. Turns out it wasn’t very muddy at all, I suspect they were a bit shocked at the mud we had just come through. The camp is fairly new, 2003, and was in great shape. As we left Journey’s End Camp the woods opened up a bit and there were piles of rocks stacked all over the place along the trail for a bit. It appeared this must have been a farm field at some point, in fact, we did see what appeared to be a cellar hole beside the trail. The rest of the trail used old road beds to the parking lot. Total miles for the day were 3.9 miles, of which 2.6 were LT miles. We have now hiked 109.6 miles of the LT or 40.15%.  Currently, all LT miles from Vermont 15 north are finished. We are now planning on heading south next week to complete the Glastenbury section and a couple of day hikes to complete miles from the Mass. Border to Route 103.

Acrylic Painting of Journey's End I did after the hike - Cindy