Little Rock Pond is a scenic pond on Vermont’s Long Trail. It has a newer shelter and campsite area staffed by a Green Mountain Club caretaker. Recently, I visited it on a 26-mile backpacking loop, linking several obscure side trails with a portion of the Long Trail in the Big Branch and Peru Peaks Wilderness Areas.
Our journey started on the Griffith Lake Trail near Mt Bromley and snaked north on the Old Job Trail, formerly the route of the Long Trail. This trail serves as an alternate lowland route between Griffith Lake and the Big Branch Shelter. The trail is an old road adjacent to Lake Brook, which drains Griffith Lake and is stocked by the State of Vermont. I didn’t have a fishing rod on this trip, but I plan to return with one.
Trip Plan
- Park at Trailhead on Griffith Lake Trail, FS 58
- Griffith Lake Trail North 2.2 miles
- Old Job Trail North 5.4 miles
- Long Trail North 4.8 miles
- Camp at Little Rock Pond
- Green Mountain Trail South 4.1 miles
- Green Mountain Connector South 0.6 miles
- Long Trail South 6.8 miles
- Griffith Lake Trail South 2.2 miles
- Total: 26 miles w/4000 ft of elevation gain
I was accompanied on this hike by a hiking buddy I’d met in Vermont earlier in the year, who, like me, had previously section-hiked the Long Trail. We get along famously.
Hiking the Old Job Trail was fast, and although we’d gotten a late start driving south that morning, we made it to the Old Job Shelter by lunch. That old shelter is in pretty bad shape, but there is a nearby picnic table alongside the brook where we sat and enjoyed a relaxing meal.
Leaving the shelter area, the trail passes through an old apple orchard along a mowed path bordered by head-high grass. This area was formerly the site of brick kilns, judging by the shards of red brick that littered the path and were mounded in the adjacent forest. The Old Job Trail rejoins the current Long Trail near the Big Branch Shelter, passing over a suspension bridge I thought I recognized from my 2008 Long Trail End-to-End.
There’s a big trailhead parking area about a mile north where we stopped to resupply our water. From there, it’s only 2.2 more miles to Little Rock Pond, although the trail is badly eroded from what I assume was bad flooding. Climate change has been wreaking havoc on the Long Trail recently. The Green Mountain Club is trying to increase the Long Trail’s resilience to major rain events, but that process is bound to take decades and will not happen overnight.
When we arrived at the shelter area, we set up our tent and then headed to the shelter for a convivial dinner with the other backpackers camping there. There were two Long Trail thru-hikers and a family of three who were out for a week that we’d met earlier in the day at the Big Branch Shelter. Once stuffed with food, we retired early and hit the hay. The following day was going to be long, mileage-wise, and we wanted to get an early start.
Our route the next day began with a climb up Green Mountain, which overlooks the pond. It’s a beautiful moss-lined trail with wide expanses of open ledge at the top. From there, we got back onto the Long Trail South and climbed over Baker Peak, which was a long climb. I was trucking, but it was a warm day, and my buddy was having foot issues, which slowed us down. Once over Baker, it was downhill all the way, and we were soon back at Griffith Lake and then the trailhead where we’d started the previous day.
Despite a difficult second day, this was a lovely loop hike and an intro to an area I plan to revisit. The side trails to and from the Long Trail, which I’ve been hiking all summer, open up opportunities for loop hikes that are fun to plan and explore. I didn’t expect that kind of payoff when I started this side-to-side trail list, but it’s been a blast and the best part is yet to come.
