A FOGGY hike to the HIGHEST POINT in Vermont: Mount Mansfield (Maple Ridge + Sunset Ridge Trails)

We made it to the top of Vermont. Check it out. It's beautiful. Back in December, 2018, we hiked our first ever state high point, Guadalupe peak in Texas. And since then, hiking the state high points that are within our hiking abilities has become a fun challenge for us. We've since conquered Wheeler peak in New Mexico, Black Elk peak in South Dakota, Mount Elbert in Colorado and Mount Marcy in New York. And today we're going to add a sixth state high point to our list. Mount Mansfield in Vermont, which is 4,393 feet above sea level. There are many different trails you can take to get to the top of Mount Mansfield and you can even drive part of the way up or take a gondola part of the way up. But we decided to do the Mount Mansfield loop trail, which is 7.3 miles and a little over 2,800 feet of elevation gain. And since we have Kona with us, we're doing the trail counterclockwise because there is some scrambling involved and we hear going counterclockwise is easier with the dog. We're getting our first view from the trail. It is a pretty nice sunrise. Pretty sure that's Lake Champlain way out there in the Adirondacks behind that. Besides that view we had from the trail, we've been mostly on a CCC trail and that's been pretty wooded. And now we're entering the part of the trail called Maple Ridge trail. And this is where it can get a bit tricky. There's two obstacles that can be kind of challenging. There's basically a vertical wall you've got to go up and then a gap to hop over. Oh no, we may not get any views today, but check out the view. So since stepping foot on the Maple Ridge trail, the trail surface has been very rocky. It's just you're climbing up basically this barren rock. Some parts are a little slick, but it is just steep, steep, steep. We made it to the first challenging part of this trail. This vertical wall that I mentioned earlier, it's not totally vertical, but it's pretty dang close. So my game plan is to go up this cut or crack here, up there and don't look down. That was pretty hard and scary. Yeah, I mean, if you can get your hand to the end of that above you. There you go. There you go. I'm sorry, Mom. You got it. Yeah. And then you're going to like want to put your stomach to this wall once you get there. Oh, that was the hardest part. Yeah. It's like this. Yeah. You got it. You got it. There you go. We did it. I read some reviews that said it's not as bad as people make it seem. So that made me go into it thinking it wasn't going to be that hard. And I thought it was harder than the people saying it's not as bad as people make it seem. But we did it. There's some kind of like nooks to put your hands and feet. Just got to go slow. We made it to the second challenging part that we read about. I think they refer to it as the gap. It is a gap. The gap looks a little wider than I thought, but the drop down below doesn't look as deep as I thought. So this one should be pretty easy. Just pick up Kona and step over. Ta-da! Ta-da! There you go. My goal is to fall forward if needed, not backwards. So I accomplished that. On a clear day, I bet the views right now would be so amazing. We're trying so hard not to be bummed out about the lack of views. Thankfully, this trail has a lot of different elements to make it really fun and challenging. So even though we don't have a view, we're still having a lot of fun on this hike. We made it to the forehead, which is 3940 feet. Apparently at ground level, if you're looking at a mountain man's field, the ridgeline looks like a face. So there's different peaks along this hike that are named after different facial features. So at the forehead, we'll hit the nose soon. And there's the upper lip and then the lower lip. And then the chin is the actual summit of Mount Mansfield. So as we mentioned before, you can also drive part of the way up. And we're on the road right now, actually. And we think we remember it costs about $26 per car. Today would not have been a good day to spend that $26. The last part of this hike has been in the Alpine area. And one very important thing to know is that you need to stay on the rocks. They have these strings right here to kind of keep you on the right path just because the ecosystem up here is super fragile. So they say do the rock walk. We made it to the top of Vermont. Check it out. It's beautiful. So recently we started a tradition that any time we summit the high point of a state, we go celebrate with pizza afterwards. But today we're eating pizza at the top. The other day we grabbed pizza at Picasso and Stowe. We ate half the pizza fresh and then we save some to bring to the summit. So even though there's no view, we have pizza. So you win some, you lose some. Cold pizza is a awesome treat anyways, but it's even better on the summit. This is definitely the best thing I've ever eaten on a hike. Miles and from what we remember, this trail has its fair share of tricky spots, too. So the hike ended up being about eight point two miles and took us around six and a half hours. And of course, we're a little bummed that we didn't get to see any views at the top and experience it for ourselves. But we also didn't get to show you guys what it was like. And we always feel bad when the weather's like that and we can't show a place in all of its glory. But we hope that if you want to do this hike, this video at least kind of gives you an idea of what to expect. And then hopefully you'll get to see the beautiful views that we hear would have been surrounding us. It was still such a fun hike, though. Like we're not that bummed out because the hike itself was just challenging and fun and had like a lot of cool features. So even though we didn't see any views, we got a good workout and it was super fun. And now we have even more reason to come back here. We made it to Montpelier, which is actually the capital. Hey, there it is. That's not the real capital, but we did drive by it earlier. And tonight we're staying at a spot called Morse Farm Maple Sugar Works, which is a harvest host. We've been staying at a lot of those lately. They've been coming in clutch since we've been out east. We actually did a whole maple syrup themed video a few videos ago. We toured a smaller scale maple syrup farm in a different area of Vermont. So go check that out to learn all about maple sugar or maple syrup. But tomorrow is going to be a behind the computer work day for us. We might go into Montpelier to check it out. But after that, we're going to head to our last area of Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom. Adam, what number maple creamy is this in Vermont? Three in like three days. When in Vermont, maple all day, every day. Good job. Hi. Oh, best trail name I've ever heard. Right here goes to Wampa Hoofus. Don't be a doofus. Hike the Wampa Hoofus. Hoofus. Don't be a doofus. Hike the Wampa Hoofus. We are being a doofus because we're not hiking the Wampa Hoofus.