MOUNT MANSFIELD - THE CHIN
My goal for this first day of hiking is to do the "Elephant's Head + Sterling Pond" loop. However, the directions the book “50 Hikes in Vermont” gives me is not helpful at all. The Smuggler’s Notch picnic site parking lot not only doesn’t have any trailhead sign that I can see, it doesn’t have any cars parked, either. I go up and down Highway 2 for a while. Once I lose my hope that I will find the trailhead I pay more attention to a trailhead sign that is visible 0.5 a mile up the road: It reads "Hell Brook". The mountain biker I bumped into a while back is also in front of the sign getting ready to take this trail. It crosses my mind: Is this going to be a hell of a hike or a hike out of hell? Can’t say without trying and I decide "what the heck, I'll do this instead". I must confess, the mountain biker, without knowing it, helped me make this decision thinking “If this is a trail conducive to biking, it must be OK for a hiker”.
Hell Brook trail marker coming down from the summit
The biker was so quick, he started dragging his bike over the rocks on the trail and disappeared into the woods in no time. At this point I am still thinking, the tail will smooth out soon because there is a biker on the trail! How could I know this would turn out to be the most difficult trail in the area, which I will learn from another hiker, who has talked to a local. Initially, observing the biker evaporate in the forest leaves me with feelings of uselessness, which lasts until I bump into him on the trail 0.5 a mile up in misery struggling over the merciless boulders. The first thing I notice is the bleeding on his left knee, the physician in me can't help but mention it. He is surely aware of it, "as long as blood comes out, it is OK" was his medical opinion with an educational manner. I feel uncomfortable mentioning “I am a physician, can we at least rinse the dirt off your knee?”
What I see him doing makes me understand once and for good that this trail is never going to become compatible with mountain biking, these rocks will only get steeper if anything, that is quite liberating! He has been proceeding up the trail with “wearing” his huge bike over his shoulder as if it were a purse (!). He is grabbing couple of pine tree branches and pulling himself up onto the next boulder. and again, and again. I feel “This is insane, but who knows how many different kinds of thrill-seeking there is in the world?”
I will never be able to figure out whether he got onto this trail without knowing what he was getting himself into or whether it was an informed choice. That is why my feeling sorry for him but also admiration for the pain he is enduring will not leave me for a long time.
I also figure out he is Scottish, from his accent, thanks to my dear friend Gerry, who is also Scottish. He and I almost play hide and seek. He takes off for a while, but slows down when boulders become unforgiving and I catch up. At some point he tells me he is trying to reach Hell Brook cutoff where our trail intersects with Long Trail. When he tells me he thinks "Long Trail will probably be more manageable" I figure out that he didn’t choose to be on Hell Brook, he just ended up on it just like me. At some point, I hear him holler from up above without discerning what he is saying. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is “My gosh, he finally fell.” I start a climb half running, I didn’t know I had that capacity. Eventually, I reach him with the first question coming out of my mouth “Are you OK?”, he sure is, he was just letting me know he had come across the cutoff. He was just letting me know just in case I would like to bail out, too. No thanks, I’ve come this far, 2/3 of the way to the summit at that point, I will enjoy this sweet misery a bit more and reach the summit. But, not knowing at that point, what Long Trail is like, my heart calms down for him at least, hoping his misery is over. On the way down I will choose to take Long Trail, and as I try to conquer the boulders, no less large or merciless compared to those of Hell Brook, I will sorrowfully recall him wishing he made it safely to his wife since going downhill on a steep set of boulders is truly more dangerous than going up.
I finally arrive at the Lake of the Clouds, the highest lake in Vermont, which I thought would be the end of my hike for the day. However, I keep observing people disappearing into a crack among the boulders and not coming back. I try to figure out what to do next. Since this was a totally unplanned hike, I don't have my bearings as strong as I'd like to. I discover by chatting with people that I am in fact, very close to the summit of the highest mountain in Vermont, the summit of Mount Mansfield, in other words, The Chin: Apparently, the Green Mountain Range around this area has a skyline that looks like the profile of a man's face with his forehead, nose and chin. And I am almost there to step foot on The Chin. The path to The Chin, I learn is through that very crack that has swallowed many people in the last ten minutes. I head into the crack as well to discover it is indeed a vertical wall of huge boulders. Thanks to the branches hanging here and there, I manage to pull myself up inch by inch. In a little bit, the all-too-familiar summit breeze starts caressing my hair through the cracks and branches. Once I reach the top, I am delighted to see everybody that the Crack below had sucked into its bosom. Some are lying on the rocks with their faces and legs exposed to the sun, which is playing peek-a-boo with us, some are strolling on The Chin, some studying the thunderstorm, which appears to be roaming the sky over Burlington, to our west.
The moment I put down my backpack, my eyes come across Chamelia’s as I straighten back up. Her eyes are full of warm, friendly sparkles. Her innocent face is a big smile, the kind I love. We start chatting, she is a field staff at the Green Mountain Club, originally from Vermont. What a gem on top of a mountain! I start bombarding her with questions, which she was pleasantly delighted to answer. She grew up in Vermont until 8 years of age, when her parents decided to move to Northern Massachusetts. Once she was done with school (a biology major), she was joyed with the opportunity to return to Vermont just as her parents were since now they had an excuse to return to Vermont to visit their daughter. Her job would last until October, then she would consider many other opportunities. I encouraged her with “Enjoy the power of youth when you have many many opportunities in life.” She smiled back with her now familiar innocent smile.
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