Brad had never hiked up Camel’s Hump in twenty years of living in Vermont, and I’m starting to actively work on my Long Trail Side-to-Side patch, so we headed out for a loop on the west side of the mountain.  The Burrows Trail parking lot was full and people were parking along the side of the road so we could expect it to be very crowded, not unexpected on a nice Saturday.

The Burrows Trail isn’t a new side trail for me, but I’ve only hiked it in winter before, so I wasn’t actually sure what it looked like without snow.  Turns out it’s rocky and steep, pretty standard for Vermont.  We were sweating from the start due to the heat but we made good time up to the hut clearing and then turned south onto the Long Trail.

Once on the Long Trail, it’s a short distance to the summit, where there were tons of people.  We found a quieter spot sort of out of the wind for an early lunch while we enjoyed the views.

Once we got up and kept heading south on the Long Trail, we started seeing a whole lot fewer people.  The views on the descent are just as spectacular so we took our time while we were still above treeline and at the few other spots below treeline where there were openings in the trees.

We eventually made it down to the junction with the Allis and Dean Trails, taking the .3 mile Allis Trail to check that one off my list.  I’ll have to get the Dean Trail on a different loop later.  That took us back to the Long Trail, where we turned north to get to Montclair Glen Lodge for another break.

From Montclair Glen, we headed down on the Forest City Trail, another new side trail for me.  It has a nice grade, much gentler than the Burrows Trail.

There’s a cool gorge towards the bottom of the Forest City Trail, which a bridge for the connector over to the Burrows Trail parking lot.  I went over there with Brad, and that little .1 mile was surprisingly rugged, but then I turned back to finish going down the Forest City Trail to the winter parking lot .8 mil further while Brad went to get the car.

It was a really nice, gentle stretch of trail, with lots of opportunities for dipping holes in the brook it followed.

The plan was for Brad to drive down and meet me at the end so I didn’t have to walk back uphill but he must have missed that part of the plan because he wasn’t there when I arrived.  After a few minutes, I did start walking up the road, only to meet him driving down about halfway up.  7 miles for the day.