Glastenbury Loop Backpack

Hi, Blog!  Zoey here.

You may not know me, but I'm a long-haired dachshund and I just finished hiking the Glastenbury Loop near Bennington, Vermont.  My owners are Darren and his wife Dusty.  We hiked with Dusty's dad, Derek.  The four of us started out Sunday.  On Monday, we met these two older hikers, Kathy and Dave, who started their hike on Monday.  They passed us on their first day into their backpack.  I introduced myself right away.  I didn't really trust them, and barked to protect my humans, but Kathy and David turned out to be friendly.

They told us of their plans to backpack on the Appalachian Trail (in this section also known as the Long Trail) from Bennington up to Glastenbury Mountain and then back the West Ridge Trail. My humans and I are doing the exact same loop hike. My humans read about it in the Best of the AT trail book, which they downloaded on their Kindle. Here is the map Dave and Kathy showed us:

They said their plans were to stay Monday night at Hell Hollow Brook ("Camp 1"), about 3 miles in from the trailhead.  Then on Tuesday they were hiking almost 7 miles up to Glastenbury Mountain to camp near the Goddard Shelter, which is a popular stopover for Appalachian Trail through-hikers ("Camp 2").  On Wednesday, they planned to hike over 8 miles, past a beaver pond, to the summit of Bald Mountain, and camp at Bear Wallow Spring on the southeast flank of Bald Mountain ("Camp 3").  Thursday, they planned to hike over 4 miles back to the place they started, for a total trip of 22.5 miles.

My human parents and I are from Florida, but my human Grandpop, Derek, is from California.  We're up for a family reunion in Connecticut, and before Derek flew home, we all wanted to do a backpack along the Appalachian Trail.  I'm trail-hardy, even though I have short legs, and this was a big adventure for me!

Kathy showed my humans a photo of the start of their hike, as they crossed the bridge over City Stream.

Some of the devastation from Hurricane Irene last year is visible.  The streams were so flooded that the roaring waters ripped the vegetation and topsoil from the riverbeds and riverbanks, leaving nothing but bare rocks and boulders for miles along formerly green streambeds.

David and Kathy also told us that they had passed a large group of 20-something hikers, who were on a training backpack for Overland, an organization that offers hiking adventures for 5th through 12th graders in New England, the Blue Ridge, the American West, Alaska and Europe.   The group comprised maybe 15 trainee leaders in full pack, all learning the necessary skills to lead kids in outdoor adventures in the wilderness.  The young backpackers were full of excitement and enjoying the day.  They were headed south on the Long Trail while all the rest of us were headed north.

The first part of the trail is very steep, but it has some pretty amazing sights, such as this huge split boulder.  I think that's David standing in the gap.

We passed Dave and Kathy again as we crossed Hell Hollow Brook.  They had their camp all set up alongside the burbling stream.  This time I recognized them, and they greeted me warmly.  They called us "Zoey and her humans," which I took as a high compliment!

We decided to camp further on the trail.  On Tuesday, we were hiking ahead of Kathy and Dave, but we made a wrong turn.  Instead of looping back on the West Ridge Trail when we reached the Goddard Shelter on Glastenbury Mountain, we continued north on the Long Trail (the AT).  It took my humans a few hours to realize we were headed the wrong direction.  By the time we got back to Glastenbury Mountain, Dave and Kathy had set up their camp and were walking up to the summit to climb the fire tower and catch the sunset.  They said they were hoping to record a video at the top of the fire tower and post it to their blog, but the mists coming in might spoil the sunset.  We were exhausted, so we didn't join them.  Instead, we marched on, back onto the correct route and all the way to a beaver pond that lies southwest of Glastenbury Mountain on the West Ridge Trail. The beaver pond was pretty, but the mosquitos were terrible.

Meawhile, Dave and Kathy had a chance to spend some time at the Goddard Shelter with other backpackers, including some through-hikers.  This spot is a little over 2/3 of the way from the southerly terminus of the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain, GA, to the northern terminus at Mount Katahdin, ME.  The faster and earlier of the through-hikers are coming through now.  Kathy and Dave also met two sisters, both retired, who were visiting from Utah to hike the Long Trail.  They also chatted with a husband and wife, Gary and Edith, from Texas, who also were visiting to hike the Long Trail.  Gary and Edith had a lot of interesting stories.  They also loved their backpack gear and had some cool hammocks with mosquito netting, that they hung from two trees at Hell Hollow Brook at midday near Dave and Kathy's camp; Gary and Edith caught an hour's nap there, and then continued on north to the Goddard Shelter.  They were planning to hike even further north that day.

Because of my humans' navigation error, we had, as it turns out, a very long hike that day.  We were exhausted by the time we settled into camp at the beaver pond Tuesday night.  Wednesday was a very hot, humid day, and we had to hike on the damp (western) slope of Bald Mountain and its ridges.  It was so overgrown with ferns and shrubs, I lost sight of my humans in a few spots.  It really started to drag us down, and Dusty's father Derek wasn't doing well at all.  This was a long hard hike for him.  Dave and Kathy passed us (again!); by this time we were old friends and I wagged my tail and ran up to them to greet them, lick their hands, and all those dog things.

As we slogged on after Kathy and David passed, I was curious about how Kathy and David were doing, so I ran ahead, just in time to hear Kathy scream.  I rounded a corner of the trail, and THERE was Kathy being eaten by a Troglodyte!  I can swear I heard the following exchange:

Troglodyte:  "You're coming with me."

Kathy: "What???"

Troglodyte:  "It's a long trip.  I'll need a snack."

My humans were running out of water and Darren decided to forge ahead with me to find the next water source, but he didn't take enough water or a trail map.  Darren and I were very, very thirsty when we finally almost crawled onto the summit of Bald Mountain - and who did we find but Kathy and David? They were resting in the shade, taking shelter from the 91F temperatures.  They had summited about 15 minutes before we did.

David had a little water left in his bottle and he shared it with Darren and me!  I eagerly lapped up what he poured in the lid, and then I stuck my nose into his water bottle to try to lap up the rest.  I couldn't get my tongue in there, but he poured me several long, big shots of water in the lid, and finally Darren told me to go over and lie down in the shade.  I did, and took a nap.

When I woke up, my human mom Dusty was just arriving.  She said Grandpa Derek wasn't doing very well, and Dusty and Darren discussed how to get down and out of the wilderness (another 6 miles, at least!) so that Derek wouldn't miss his flight home to California.  Kathy and David showed their trail map to Darren and warned him about which turns to make and what trails to take in order to get back to our car.  Then David and Kathy said goodbyes and told us they were going to camp near Bear Wallow Spring, which was the next source of water for us, too.

We started down the mountain about half an hour after Kathy and David.  We passed the sign and trail junction for Bear Wallow Spring (thanks, Dave and Kathy, for drawing that big arrow in the dirt pointing to the correct path).  I craftily let my humans walk ahead of me, and then I disappeared down the side trail to the spring to see what David and Kathy were up to.  Not more than a hundred yards or so down the side trail, I spotted Kathy already relaxing at their makeshift campsite.  It looked very homey:

I ran back to my humans, satisfied in knowing that Kathy and David were settling in for the evening.

Before I wrote this, I learned that Kathy and David had no problems getting out on Thursday.  They had about a 2 mile woods walk down to a gravel road, and then another 1 mile walk along that gravel road to the highway.  They said they got some dramatic views of City Stream and all the devastation from Hurricane Irene.  Kathy said that she saved a pair of clean hiking socks just for the highway walk back to their truck.  She changed into the new socks and they started up the highway toward the parking lot. Then the traffic let up and the sun got hot and they were gettin' dry, almost let a pick-up truck nearly pass them by.  So they jumped right in and the driver grinned and he dropped them up the road (just like it happened in Van Morrison's song, "And It Stoned Me")! Kathy didn't even get the new socks dirty.


As they crossed the highway to the parking lot, Kathy said they ran into the young hike leaders from Overland, who were also finishing their hike.  Kathy said it was a real coincidence that they saw the young people both at the beginning and end of the adventure.


And that's about all I have to report on my backpack with my humans on the Glastenbury Loop. Mom and Dad got Grandpop to the airport just fine and we are heading up to Brattleboro to stay at a B&B. Can't wait for a real bed.  Kathy said she and David were going to drive down to Henry's Smoked Meats in Bennington and pick up some good smoked breakfast sausage.  Now, that's something a long-haired dachshund could get excited about!