Breadloaf Mountain Via The Emily Proctor Trail

After a nice, if wet and humid walk here in Norwich yesterday, I decided last night that I wanted to get a little bit further away from here and into the Greens.  Studying some maps for a while, I decided to hike up to Breadloaf Mountain via the Emily Proctor trail.  Breadloaf Mountain, sitting in the eponymous Breadloaf Wilderness, is about as deep into the Breadloaf Wilderness as one can easily get in a single day.

I woke up early today, and after a nice breakfast, got on the road – this was going to be a decently long drive, if Google Maps is to be trusted (which I find it generally is).  After a nice cruise over the mountains and through the woods, I finally got to the trail head, geared up and began walking.  The day started out cool and somewhat overcast, but the forecast was calling for highs in the low 60°s at elevation, with mostly sunny clouds – I don’t think that it could be much more perfect than that!

After walking for a few minutes, I entered the Wilderness proper.

A lot of the lower section of the trail was lined with ferns like these.

A bit further up, the trail crosses the uppermost reaches of the New Haven River in this gorgeous spot.

A gentle reminder that New England was, at one point, roughly 80% logged off.  Thankfully it isn’t like that these days.

The trail passes many gorgeous mountain brooks, such as this one, on the way up.

The grade gets steeper as the trail ascends towards the boreal forest.

I just love this boreal forest – it’s so beautiful.

Sooner than I knew it, I had reached the Emily Proctor shelter along the Long Trail.  From there, I kept going another ¾ of a mile or so south along the Long Trail towards the summit of Breadloaf Mountain.

When I got there, I was greeted with this great scene of the Adirondacks (click to enlarge the panorama).

Towards the south, the Snowbowl was sitting pretty snow-less (ok, ok, it was an amazing year and I’m not actually complaining – I mean it is June 10th!).

I sat around on the summit of Breadloaf Mountain, just taking it all in.  It was, as predicted, an absolutely perfect day up there – mid 60°s and quite sunny, with great views of the Daks.  I ended up laying around for nearly 45 minutes, as I just could not get myself to leave!  It really was that nice up there.

It astounds me how much can be going on at once in these boreal forests.  Here the spur towards the summit of Breadloaf Mountain heads into the woods while the Long Trail wraps around some trees as it continues northward.

Yet another beautiful mountain brook crossing the trail.  There were so many amazing spots like this along the trail.

Crossing back over the New Haven.  (This is actually from the same spot as the earlier shot.)

I didn’t go into this hike with too many expectations, but damn, this was an amazing hike.  Between the perfect weather, the amazing views of the Daks, the beautiful forest and absolute lack of people (I saw 3 people and 1 dog all day long), this was certainly one of the best hikes I’ve taken in a long while.  Wow.

Now if only this awesome weather would hang around for a few more days…