October 3, 2010
This hike was a scheduled hike from my
day hiking group. My wife, Jen, friend, Jim and I spent the day hiking to the summit of Killington Peak via the Bucklin Trail which is a side trail of the Long Trail system. The weather was cool and sunny. The trail starts out as a nice gradual inline, a fairly easy to moderate hike, following the pristine Brewers Brook. A perfect warm up. At about 2 miles in, the trail steeply and aggressively ascends towards the peak for a little over a mile intersecting with the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail. This then brought us to Cooper Lodge; a trail shelter that is no longer maintained due to winter vandalism from out of state skiers. The Green Mountain Club is considering tearing it down. From the shelter was Killington Spur; a difficult 0.2 mile stairway of rock scrambling to reach the peak of Vt's second highest mountain. Unfortunately when we got on top the summit was crowded with "leaf peepers" who took the ski
gondola up. It was nerve racking to see little kids running around while their parents were more interested in getting photos. This is no place for anyone to fall off from. Overall, it was a great hike covering 7.2 miles round trip with a 2,500 foot elevation gain.
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| Jen, Jim and Jobiwan |
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| Brewers Brook |
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| Cooper Lodge |
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| From Cooper Lodge |
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| Killington Spur |
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| Jim and Jobiwan on top of Killington |
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| Jim coming down the spur |
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