Day 29 of a Vermont Long Trail thru-hike attempt turned into a story about splitting up — and about what happens when one member of a hiking trio carries on alone while the others take over trail support from the roadside.
The leg ran from Montclair Glen Lodge (mile 175) down to Duxbury Road at mile 182.9, a short distance on paper but a brute in profile: roughly 1,700 feet of climbing and over 4,000 feet of descent, much of it steep enough to demand care. For the first time in a month, the writer and her partner — trail names Anniversary and The Historian — slept apart from their hiking companion, Rock Rabbit, who was pushing up and over Camel's Hump, one of Vermont's most iconic 4,000-footers.
The split wasn't planned drama. An earlier injury to The Historian's wrist on wet rock had forced the group to reassess, leaving Rock Rabbit to hike solo while the others tracked his progress on the FarOut app, trading messages and guessing at his pace from below. From the summit side, the weather turned quickly: a stellar sunrise with a time-lapse that caught a bird zipping through frame, then wind, fog and light rain — mist being, as the writer notes, just another word for water on rock. Wet rock was exactly what had ended their own stretch of the hike.
The solo descent earned its reward. Moving quietly as a lone hiker, Rock Rabbit came across a moose browsing near the trail and managed a photo. The final miles were gentle and carpeted with fall leaves — a walk he described as equal parts relief and melancholy, with the group still unsure whether the whole trip ends here or gets reassembled in some new form: a rendezvous in New Hampshire, a flight home to Montana, or a supported finish for Rock Rabbit while the others crew.
For anyone dreaming of a Long Trail hike, this entry is a useful dose of reality. Camel's Hump is the kind of mountain that can deliver a gorgeous sunrise and slick, fog-bound rock within the same hour. Support crews — even informal ones with a borrowed car and a tracking app — change the calculus of a thru-hike, and the logistics of trailhead pickups at spots like Duxbury Road are a genuine part of the experience. It's also a reminder that the trail's best moments often arrive unscheduled: a moose encounter, fall colour underfoot, a friend standing safe in a parking lot at 3pm.
Who's this for? Hikers weighing up the Long Trail, anyone curious about group dynamics on a thru-hike, and travellers who want a ground-level look at Vermont's high country in autumn before committing to it themselves.
