Early October in Vermont means one thing on the Appalachian Trail: colour everywhere, and weather that can flip from magical to miserable in a couple of hours. A hiker writing for The Trek is currently working through that exact stretch, attempting to hike the entire 2,190-mile AT twice in a single year, and their latest leg offers a useful snapshot of what autumn backpacking in the Green Mountains actually looks like.
The section runs from Route 11/30 down to Route 9, about 40 miles of trail through the Green Mountain National Forest. The writer set an ambitious pace — nearly 27 miles a day across three days — and logged a 25.7-mile first leg (roughly 54,000 steps, with over 5,000 feet of climbing) ending at Kid Gore Shelter.
The highlights came early. A short scramble off the trail at Spruce Peak delivers ledges with views over the town of Manchester, and a brief road walk leads to Prospect Rock, where the clearing frames the Battenkill River Valley with Mount Equinox filling the far side. Then there's the road walking itself: tree-lined Vermont lanes in peak calico season, which the writer describes as intensely magical in a way forest trail sometimes isn't.
Not everything cooperated. Stratton Mountain, home to an old fire tower, swallowed the summit in cloud — visibility of about 30 feet and sustained 30 mph winds made the tower climb a non-starter. The section is also unexpectedly soggy: the writer counted more stream crossings than anywhere else on the trail so far, plus bogs and a waterlogged approach to camp. Kid Gore Shelter, named for a college football coach and outdoor enthusiast, sits beside a weak spring that pools across 20 feet of trail, negotiable only via stepping stones.
The human side made the day. Two other hikers were camped at the shelter, one of whom had packed a bag of candy purely to share — early Halloween for thru-hikers. The writer traded his water filter for the gesture after the man's own filter broke, a small example of the informal economy of generosity that keeps long-distance hikers going.
Why does this matter to a regular traveller? You don't need to hike 27 miles a day to use this stretch. The southern Vermont AT overlaps heavily with the Long Trail, and day-hikeable objectives like Prospect Rock, Spruce Peak and the Stratton Mountain fire tower give leaf-peepers something better than a roadside lookout. The practical lessons travel well: October in the Greens means mist, wind and wet gear even when rain odds are low, water sources are plentiful (contrary to dry-autumn expectations), and shelter-to-shelter planning beats gambling on spontaneous campsites, which in this stretch ranged from a spot practically on the trail to an overgrown viewpoint with nowhere flat to pitch.
