September 26, 2009
This is it! The weekend of the Vermont 50. Tomorrow I'll be running in a 50 kilometer trail race. But first I have to get there.
I stopped in the Whites to show Lynn the Old Man of the Valley. The Old Man of the Mountain slide off the face of Cannon Mountain a few years ago, but the Old Man of the Valley still lives. It is just passed the NH/ME border on the New Hampshire side. There is a sign for it on the road. It is a short 1 minute walk (at the most) on an easy trail. Here I am by the profile.
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I dropped Lynn off at our motel room in West Lebanon, N.H. The motel is about a half hour drive from the race. This is a fairly big event so finding nearby lodging at a reasonable price is tough. I then drove down to Brownsville, Vermont to pick up my race packet since I was required to pick it up on Saturday, but first I had a mountain to climb. There is a beautiful mountain there, Mount Ascutney. The race skirts the bottom of the mountain but does not go anywhere near the summit.
Although I had a big race tomorrow and should be resting, I had blue skies and time to spare. I had to climb this mountain. It is on the list of New England's 50 finest. The name of the list is a little misleading. It's not necessarily the 50 mountains with the best views but rather the 50 mountains with the most prominence. This does not mean they are the 50 tallest mountains, but rather the 50 mountains that "stick out" from the crowd and rise the furthest above the neighboring mountains. Since so many of the mountains on this list are bushwhacks and having vowed that bushwhacking to viewless summits was no longer part of my hiking future, I don't plan to ever finish this list. Regardless, it will be nice to climb this peak.
To view a map of Mount Ascutney State Park click here.
I would be taking the Brownsville Trail to the summit.
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My first viewpoint was at Norcross Quarry.
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Another view from the quarry
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These stones were much to square to be natural. They were obviously cut from the quarry. I was on the move, but I'm sure they provide nice seating for weary hikers.
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My next stop was Knee Lookout.
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As I got further up the mountain, there was another view, this time to the west. I'm not sure but the big mountain in the back may be Killington.
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Getting closer
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This mountain is filled with beautiful viewpoints, but none compared to the view from Brownsville Rock. I took my only real break of the day here, staying 5-10 minutes. Use the scrollbar to view the entire photo.
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A few minutes later I reached the observation tower which is not quite on the summit.
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I headed to the top of the tower where another hiker took my picture.
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View from the tower.
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Looking over to some antennas on the true summit.
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I went over and tagged the 3,140' summit which was pretty much viewless.
This makes #30 for my 50 finest list. Again, I have no plans to complete the list. If you want to view the complete list click here.
Seeing that I may never return to this mountain, I wanted to explore it a little bit. I headed over to West Peak.
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At West Peak there was a hang glider launch with an exceptional view.
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I then took Hang Glider Trail
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Seeing no need to summit the mountain twice, I then took another trail that bypassed the summit. I went up a stone staircase as I neared Castle Rock.
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The view west from Castle Rock.
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I wanted to take a more gradual route down the mountain in an effort to save my knees for tomorrow's race. I took the Windsor Trail down. I briefly got off the trail to check out Blood Rock Lookout.
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View from Blood Rock Lookout
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I got back on the Windsor Trail which I took back to the road.
I then had a 1.2 mile road walk to get back to my vehicle.
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