Mendon Peak is #85 on the New England 100 Highest List. Located adjacent to Mt Killington in Vermont, it’s an 8-mile out-and-back hike along old logging roads with a 2-mile bushwhack at the end. I snowshoed it last weekend with four other hikers on a trip run by the Killington Section of the Green Mountain Club.
We encountered a surprising amount of snow on this hike. At last it was surprising for me. While I’ve spent a lot of time in Vermont this winter, I cannot for the life of me, predict what the weather will be like along the west side of the Green Mountain Range or find a forecast that’s reliable enough to extrapolate what conditions will be like. I think the terrain has an uncanny and highly localized effect on the weather which creates a high degree of variability between areas. The only way to deal with it is to be prepared for “anything” because it will likely happen.
So for this hike. I packed my usual winter off-trail gear list…which is not that different from my on-trail winter gear list including microspikes, snowshoes, insulated water bottles, a couple pairs of gloves and lots of food.
We parked in the lot at the base of the Bucklin Trail which climbs Killington and headed up an adjacent logging road. We donned our snowshoes and stayed in them for the next 7 hours. Seamus, the trip leader, had bushwhacked Mendon previously so he was familiar with the route, although we still checked our smartphone navigation apps at junctions, since everything looks so different in winter.
A group of backcountry skiers had broken out a trail ahead of us, but we tried to stay out of their tracks in case they planned to exit by the same route. There was about a foot of power on the trail, but the snow was very dry, so the going was quite easy. At least until we started gaining elevation up a smaller and much narrower logging road.
The path up to the start of the bushwhack is very easy to follow on Mendon because, for good or ill, it’s displayed as a trail in both the GaiaGPS and Caltopo Smartphone Navigation Apps. However, the final approach is not well marked on those apps.
For one, there is a false summit that’s not apparent on the topographic map: we had to bumble around before we realized it. And then, deep snow has a tendency to make three-season routes impassible because the snow weighs down vegetation and covers obstacles that are easy to avoid when you can see them. That’s when it helps to have a compass and a good sense for how to find openings in the forest that you can climb more easily.
When we realized that there was a false summit and that we were on it, it was easy to reach the true summit of Mendon. But when we reached the top, we couldn’t find the summit sign or the canister, a PVC pipe attached to a tree and containing a logbook that you can sign. We spread out and scoured every inch of the summit looking for that sign or canister. And just as we were ready to give it up and call it a day, Seamus saw the sign. We never did find the canister though.
You don’t have to sign the logbook for find the sign to have the climb “count” if you’re working on one of the peak-lists that Mendon is on. But it’s fun to read names in the logbook and see who’s climbed the mountain before you. You’ll often see a name or a friend you recognize.
The day was waning and we wanted to get back to our cars before dark. We decided to backtrack over our prints from the hike up rather than navigate along a new route. That’s always a prudent course on a winter bushwhack, rather than create and break out a new route full of unknowns. The times I haven’t heeded that advice have required a lot more energy than just reversing my previous route.
It was still a slog down the mountain again and took hours before we got back to the parking lot. We’d just made it out before needing to don headlamps and soon parted company, hoping to hike together again.
