Up And Over Gile Mountain

After having been in NY for the past few days, I decided to stay local today and go on a nice hike up and over Gile Mountain with Krysta and her dog, Sophie.  Although the normal hike listed on that DOC page is only 1.4 miles round trip, we decided to tackle something at least a little more challenging and turned this hike into a 5-6 miler by starting out near the top of the Bill Ballard Trail and shuttling a car to the other side of Gile Mountain (as described on that DOC page).

As we walked into the woods, I instantly regretted wanting to take a hike today – it was too hot and way too muggy, with the constant threat of storms looming just a bit too near into the future.  Well, lo and behold, about half an hour into our two hour walk we got poured on.  Luckily, the heavy rain was very short-lived and from then on out, we only had to deal with short showers and light sprinkles.  And although it would have been nice, the thunderstorms did nothing to relieve us from the insufferable humidity in the woods.

Unfortunately, between the rain and everything else, this wasn’t a great walk to be taking pictures.  However, here’s one of Sophie wading through the sea of ferns that surrounded parts of the trail.

When we got to the top, we decided to avoid the fire tower as we were still hearing lots of thunder rumbling off in the distance.  Checking out the shelter though, we found a bunch of great street art.

One wall of the shelter was covered up with this great stencil of a not-so-pleased looking bear.

Another side had this goofy looking bird painted up.

All in all, not a bad walk.  I wish the rain had managed to hold off, although seeing the numbers flashing on my clock made me realize that we may have just missed the real brunt of this storm.  So I guess we got lucky after all.  Tomorrow looks like a beautiful day, so with any luck I’ll be finding myself deep in the heart of the Green Mountains tomorrow.  Get out there and enjoy it – life is for the living!