The Breadloaf Wilderness

The portion of Vermont's Long Trail between Lincoln Gap and Middlebury Gap (VT-125) lies within the Breadloaf Wilderness. The Long Trail Guide says that in federally designated wilderness areas:

You will find that signs are less frequent and often omit mileage figures, trail blazing and brush cutting are limited, bridges, if any, are generally primitive, and there are occasional stream fords.

Nancy and I hiked this section of the Long Trail yesterday. We did not encounter any stream fords. Nor did we encounter many people – only 11 or 12 people all day, in ones and twos, all headed northbound. We hiked southbound from Lincoln Gap to Middlebury Gap. The photo above is Nancy signing in at the beginning of our hike in Lincoln Gap at 6:10 AM. The sign at the right says "Breadloaf Wilderness / Green Mountain National Forest."

This portion of the Long Trail is sometimes called Vermont's Presidential Range because it includes Mounts Grant, Cleveland, Roosevelt and Wilson. At 3400 to 3800 feet, the summits are much lower than New Hampshire's famous Presidential Range, and there are few views. Not even the highest elevation on our hike yesterday, Breadloaf Mountain at 3835 feet, had a view. One of the few places on our hike with a view was Killington View, shown below:

We hiked by four shelters yesterday:

• Cooley Glen Shelter
• Emily Proctor Shelter
• Skyline Lodge (0.1 mile off the Long Trail)
• Boyce Shelter

This photo shows Skyline Lodge:

Skyline Lodge overlooks Skylight Pond, which is the headwater of the White River:

Near the end of our hike was a 0.4 mile side trail out to Silent Cliff where we understand there is a beautiful vista. We left that for another day. The photo below shows Nancy at the end of our hike in Middlebury Gap at 6:50 PM:

The sign at the left says "Breadloaf Wilderness / Green Mountain National Forest."

We were on the trail for nearly 13 hours. It was a good day for hiking, with no bugs, temps in the upper 50s and low 60s, no rain, mostly cloudy, not too muddy. Mileage was 17.3 miles on the Long Trail plus 0.1 mile each way to Skyline Lodge for a total of 17.5 miles. My Fitbit registered 55,036 steps for the day. Nancy's registered 53,136. We may never break those records.