As part of my "exploring new things" agenda, I had planned a turnoff onto the Rock Garden trail. This side-trail led across the steep slopes to the south of Mt Mansfield's Forehead, and supposedly led through some interesting boulder and cliff features. By the time we got to the Rock Garden trail turnoff, though, I was having second thoughts - the Maple Ridge trail was so nice. Sticking to the plan, though, we turned off onto the Rock Garden.
The Rock Garden trail is one of many little "accessory" trails that are found all over Mansfield's higher elevations. In that respect, the Mt Mansfield area is a bit different than other major summits in the northeast, where trail development is usually limited to a few major routes.
The others weren't too impressed with the start of the Rock Garden trail. It wasn't scenic like the Maple Ridge trail; it was rougher, and it went dishearteningly downhill. I encouraged them to perservere, however, and soon we arrived at the first of the features that give the trail its name.
Huge boulders, narrow passageways and interesting little scrambles marked the "good" part of the Rock Garden trail. In places, it was a bit like slot-canyon hiking, with narrow clefts and tight squeezes. The group's approval rating for the trail, accordingly, went up.
It took us about forty minutes to cover the rough one kilometer (0.7 miles) of the Rock Garden trail. At its far end, we arrived at the cabin of Butler Lodge - one of the overnight stopover points along Vermont's Long Trail (which was located just a few minutes away). The Long Trail is Vermont's mini version of the Appalachian Trail, and it traverses the entire state from south to north (or north to south, if you prefer).
A Break at the Butler Lodge
We stopped for a good rest and snack stop at Butler Lodge (being pre-season and a non-weekend day for US residents, it was empty). We then continued on, hoping to hop onto the nearby Long Trail and begin our traverse over the top of Mansfield itself.
I chose a faint path leading to the lodge's water source instead of the actual connector trail, and soon the path degraded into a pseudo-bushwhack. It was clearly the remnant of an old trail, now long-closed, but we didn't feel like backtracking and we knew the Long Trail was only a few yards ahead somewhere. Do not follow the path beyond the water source if you are trying to get from Butler Lodge to the Long Trail. Go a little further south and take the current, proper trail.
Now on the Long Trail, we turned left (north). Immediately we encountered another very cool (and very steep) section of trail, where a cliff band is surmounted. The trail climbs up several nearly vertical sections (often via ladders) and along a few airy exposed ledges. It was nothing all that extreme, and, in my opinion quite fun and scenic.
Beyond the ledges and ladders, the slope of terrain eased quite a bit. It was still moderately steep, but now it was just a straightforward hike. We were now on The Forehead's southern ridgeline, and we emerged onto increasingly frequent open patches, providing broad views south along the crest of the Green Mountains.
courtesy JInnes
Twenty minutes and 500 feet of elevation gain brought us to the top of The Forehead - the southernmost bump along Mount Mansfield's "face" (the other bumps being The Nose, The Chin, and The Adam's Apple). Here we met the upper end of the Maple Ridge Trail, which we had departed down at the start of the Rock Garden Trail. My guess is that the upper end of Maple Ridge is every bit as good as the lower part - in fact, probably even better. A fantastic hike that I'll have to come back another time to do.
Our arrival at The Forehead meant the majority of the day's climbing was over. From here the grades were quite gentle; from our 3940' elevation, we only had to gain about 400 feet (over probably 1.5 miles) to reach the highest elevation (at the Chin) of 4393 feet, and with little elevation to lose in between. Pretty easy.
From The Forehead, the Long Trail dipped back into an area of scrub, then thick fir and pine forest, as it made its way north towards The Nose. Mostly on the flat, we continued along for about 15 minutes before emerging onto a gravel road, with large communication towers looming high above us. The towers are mounted on Mt Mansfield's Nose, and the gravel road provides maintenance access to the towers and related facilities.
Our group wasn't all that interested in visiting the facilities-tainted top of The Nose, so we turned left on the access road and bypassed it. Soon we reached the sign marking the continuation of the Long Trail, and turned right onto it. This led - in very short order - to another large open area. On the right was a parking lot, and on the left, a large white building marked Mt Mansfield Visitor Center.
courtesy JInnes
