I’d been hearing about the ice columns on Laraway Mountain since last winter so I wanted to check them out and used my March OWA outing to do so.  We met up at the winter trailhead parking on Codding Hollow Road in Long Trail State Forest and walked up the road a little bit to hop on the Long Trail north.  It was a gradual (for Vermont) climb up the trail, less than 2 miles to the ice columns.  We were in snowshoes the whole time, although once we neared the columns, some of the trail would have been easier with spikes on instead.  I was excited to finally come to the tall, overhanging rock walls that constantly drip water, which in the winter leads to giant ice columns.  They were actually smaller than normal due to recent thawing but they were still really cool.

After checking the ice out for a bit, we kept going another quarter mile up the trail to the Laraway Lookout.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the view, or anything more than about ten feet out.  We decided not to continue the little bit further to the summit since we wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.

We turned around and headed back down the Long Trail the way we’d come, and made good time back to the trailhead, despite stopping and checking the columns out again.  Most of us switched to spikes for the way down to get through the couple of tricky spots near the ice, and the spikes were fine for the whole way down.