Carleton Mtn to Jay Camp
First day of full hiking, awoke to the
patter of rain on the roof of the tent, and Billy grinning contently at the
coziness of being inside. It was quite early and we were keen to get
started so we packed up our gear, in an elaborate rainy weather routine to
avoid too many things getting wet.
We started off into the forest heading down
Carleton Mtn, back up Blunt Mtn, then down again to Shooting Star shelter for
breakfast. The ups and downs were something we’d get used to over the next few
days – doesn’t appear to be much flat ground in this area.
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| Breakfast and a billy of coffee at Shooting Star Shelter |
Our 2 hr walk helped us enjoy our scrambled
egg breakfast and 1L+ of freshly brewed billy coffee. Yum!
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| Topping up our water supply |
We took things leisurely, and didn’t start
back much before 11am. Still a constant patter of rain overhead – sound of the
plops on the leaves magnifying the sense of wetness.
There’s skating mud, which takes you by
surprise and projects you forward.
Then there’s fake mud. This isn’t mud at
all as I discovered. We reached a lowpoint in the track that was particularly
muddy with a couple of logs strewn along the path. I started out using the
logs, but was finding it difficult to balance with my heavy pack, so thought
“hey, how deep can this really be” and took a leap of faith. My right foot left
the log and plunged into the mud. It kept going. I was only stopped by my left
leg, which had concertinaed up underneath me. The right leg was now fully
immersed in the fake mud, all the way up to mid thigh.
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| My foot disappears completely |
Billy called “wait!” as he dived…into his
bag to capture the moment on camera. I semi-rolled, semi crawled my way out in
a bit of shock. Least I won’t be worried about skirting around puddles from
now!
As we headed Dolls Mountain, a steep 300m
climb, we passed another pair of hikers of disparate mindsets. The first had a
happy place fever rating of 8.5 and rising, the second had a happy place fever
rating of 3 and holding. We wondered what their lunchtime conversation would be
like!
It was misty as we climbed up the steep
track to Dolls Mtn. There were no views up in the clouds, but it was pretty in
the forest, even though it was difficult and slow going to negotiate the mud,
rocky slopes and tree roots of the trail that took up most of my conversation.
After a few more ups and downs, we spotted
the roof of Laura Woodward shelter where we were planning to have lunch. As we rounded the corner, a pack of 3 dogs
jumped up, ran over and started aggressively barking – it wasn’t the welcome we
were expecting. We had read dogs were allowed on the trail, and these were with
a family that were out for a couple of days. It took a bit to calm them, but we
settled down eventually into our space for a delicious lunch. Throughout all
the excitement, we hadn’t noticed that the clouds had made way for some blue
sky…yay!
We started out again enthusiastically now
that the sun had returned and almost immediately hit an uphill. We were aiming
for Jay Peak, the highest mountain in this section of the walk. It’s also a ski
area, so about three quarters of the way up we came across a wide open expanse
– a ski run. Whoa, this looked steep! Not my kind of blue run.
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| A surprise ski run |
We ducked back
into the forest for another 20min, before emerging again at a second (black
diamond style) ski run. This time we were getting close – I could see the blue
sky beckoning. One last massive effort up an impossibly steep slope and we’d
made it to the top!
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| Top of Jay Peak, Vermont |
Billy greeted me with a wave and said we’d
just missed the last gondola down! At least it was going in the wrong direction
– otherwise I would have been disappointed (happy place fever rating 5), but as
it was, I knew we were heading further south.
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| Last gondola back down |
The sun was warming our backs as we started
the descent towards Jay Camp.
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| Billy makes his way down Jay Peak |
At this point, we realized how late in the day it
was, and the likelihood of the shelter being full, so we scouted out a sunny
spot on a cleared ski run nearby. Delight! Dry clothes, warmth, we made dinner
and dreamed about the pancakes we’d have in the sun the following morning.
The
day in statistics
Total
Miles: 8.8
Total
up: 800m
Total
down: 460m
No.
of Moose: 0
Happy
Place Fever rating: Billy – 0, Shell – 2-5
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