A stealth campsite on Harmon Hill (2,327 feet) mile 1612.1 to a campsite at Kid Gore Shelter (2,782 feet) mile 1628.3 for a 16.2 mile day.

After enjoying a cup of coffee, it’s been a while, we set off on our day. Our goal, 16 miles north!

Leaving Harmon Hill we headed north towards highway 9. Heading towards a highway always means the same thing, down hill followed by an up hill to get back up on the mountain. This time, that meant a 1,113 foot descent followed by a 1,447 foot ascent!! All anyone walks about in Pennsylvania is the rocks, though the 7th state on trail is far behind us, we still have rocks to deal with, and honestly, we will for the rest of the trip!

The bottom of the descent, just across the highway was our first water source for the day, and boy was it a gusher! This particular branch is called, City Stream, it flows just a short distance form here into the Roaring Branch Walloomsac Brook.

From here, we continued up, heading north, making our way to the Melville Nauheim Shelter, and just passed the shelter to the peak of this climb, totaling 1,300 feet! It is great to be climbing again!! If I haven’t said so already, and will probably say it again, this is why I hike, climbs like this, they get the blood flowing, the heart pumping and the legs burning. Oh, and, don’t forget the lungs, they get their own workout as well!

Now it’s time to hike on, into the Glastenbury Wilderness which is home to Glastenbury mountain.

I think this will be our first lookout tower we have seen in quite some time now on trail. These towers are always worth the extra effort to get the above tree, 360° views. Glastenbury wilderness is one of eight wilderness areas in Vermont and is the second largest covering almost 22,400 acres! Glastenbury mountain, where the wilderness gets its name, is 3,747 feet in elevation at its peak. The mountain is made up of balsam fir, red spruce, white and yellow birch, beech, and mountain ash. Scattered amongst all of those trees are, ferns, raspberries, blackberries and a new plant we have yet to see, bluebead lilly.

Climbing this tower, we got a feel fro what the above tree line climbs in the white mountains would be like, windy with a chill!

From here we continued down hill a few miles to the Kid Gore Shelter. This shelter had an amazing sunset view, if you were willing to sleep in the shelter, and with the mosquitoes, I wasn’t willing! As far as campsites go, the shelter had very few and I ended up making my own spot in the trees having to dodge trees to get there without a path. But, I found a flat spot and set up and fell asleep after dinner.

Puppy love, out!