Mount Mansfield

As promised, we climbed Mount Mansfield yesterday. Mansfield is the highest peak in Vermont, rising almost 4400 feet above sea level. We didn't start at sea level, thankfully, but this was still the hardest hike we've done in years. We wound up hiking a little more than six miles up and back, gaining almost 2600 vertical feet along the way.

We'd originally planned to do a 7.5-mile loop, but by the time we got to the summit, Sally and I were both a little worried about trying to come back down the steep parts in an overly-exhausted state. Sally's guidebook labeled the trail up from Underhill State Park as "hard" not "strenuous", but it got plenty technical in places. All told, I feel like this hike was harder than any we've done in Maine just because it was so relentlessly steep.

Going up, this was not really a big deal. Coming down, though, it got treacherous.

The bottom half of the trail ran through a long forested section, often with stone or even wooden stairs. Further up, though, we broke out of the treeline and onto an extended granite rise where we had to climb more carefully, at time using three points of contact just like you learned back in Boy Scouts of Beast Barracks or wherever.

All smiles at the beginning of the day

Down in the forested area.

Transitioning out of the trees

Sally took this shot at the summit.
I was glad I had my coat. It got cold up there!

The summit marker

Sally's view for lunch

Stowe Ski Resort as seen from the summit of Mount Mansfield.
We were maybe 1000' above the gondola here.

Lunchtime selfie

We were both plenty tired by the time we got to the summit, which is why we decided to just turn around and descend the way we'd come up. Smart idea, but I still slipped and fell on the way back down, either because the rocks just got slippery or because I got too tired and lost focus.

I was lucky I was wearing the backpack. I wound up taking a flat-backed pro-wrestling bump straight onto a pointed rock. Thankfully, the metal water bottles in my backpack kept me from, like, cracking a rib or doing myself any real injury. I still managed to skin my hand up pretty good, and I somehow dislocated the smallest joint on the first finger of my right hand. Of all the weird-ass injuries to take in a fall! I didn't even realize I'd done it until I'd popped the thing back in, and then I couldn't feel it because of my adrenaline and because my hands had gotten so cold during the last hour of the climb.

Friends, my finger turned white. I didn't know if this was because of the cold or because of the dislocation, but I did know that were a minimum of two and a half hours from any kind of first aid. It seemed a little weird to lose circulation because of a dislocation, but maybe it's not impossible? In the back of my mind, some part of me knew feared that if I couldn't get the circulation going to the tip of my finger, I was at risk of losing the damned thing later that night.

Fun!

I stuck my hands in my pockets as we descended, and thankfully, the air warmed quickly down from the summit. My finger soon turned red and started swelling. It's sore as a motherfucker right now, but it's still attached, so I suppose no harm done overall. Just drama.

Alas, that fall made the climb down agonizing because I tried to be hyper-careful from there on out, and that's a tough way to climb down for three freaking miles.

We were both plenty tired by the time we got down. A good day, all-in-all, but we were both smoked afterwards. We came home, had a beer, made some dinner, and then watched Cape Fear last night on Apple TV.

Mount Mansfield as seen from our car on the drive home.

We're doing a little rail-trail today on our bikes. Should be a much less impactful day overall.

How is everybody back in The World?