Contraband Ski Lift Activities

7-20-09 day 48
start: Green Mountain House in Manchester Center, VT
end: Big Branch Shelter, VT
daily mileage: 16.5
total mileage: 644.6

We got a later start than expected (no one woke us up!), but enjoyed some tasty cereal and were soon on our way. We set out with Whisp and Pork Chop, all four of us hiking in a big group. Though we soon split up, we kept running into them all day.

At the top of Bromley Peak was a beautiful view (one of the best we've seen) and several ski slopes. We met up with Gritty and Gromet and Whisp and Pork Chop. Being July, all the ski lift equipment looked pretty deserted... so Sea Monster decided to climb up some of it! I got a good picture of him up on a platform that it looked like he probably shouldn't be on. He came down and talked me into going up with him, and we discovered (to our amazement) that the trap door he had just climbed up was now locked with a padlock... a guy in an ATV had seen him up there and locked it!

We hiked with Whisp all day, and towards the end the three of us saw the Lost Pond Shelter... a shelter, under construction, that is being built for the third time after it's burned down twice in the last 8 years! The crazy part is, there are two other shelters within 2 miles of it! When there are parts of the trail where shelters are 30 miles apart, it seems bizarre to spend so much time on an obviously doomed one... but hey, they don't pay me to think about these things, they pay me to walk.