This hike was originally a Long Trail hike to Butler Lodge on 10/7, but was moved to 10/9 when we got almost 4 inches of rain in Underhill that day. And when the only person signed up asked if we could do Skylight Pond instead, I said yes. But getting there was a challenge! We met at the Hinesburg park & ride at 9 AM with no problem. Google maps said we could wind our way through back forest roads from Lincoln, but I was skeptical, so we continued on VT 116 through Bristol until we saw signs saying the road was closed 8.5 miles ahead. At this point I decided Google maps was right, so we backtracked and went through Lincoln and got within about 4 miles of the trailhead when we encountered a closed gate. So my skepticism was well founded, and we went back through Bristol again, followed VT 116 to a detour that took us through downtown Middlebury. At this point traffic crawled to a halt. We thought it was due to leaf peepers, but as we got out of town the traffic ahead of us finally started moving, and we saw that we had been following a horse-drawn cart all the way through town. That final obstacle out of the way we continued to VT 125 and Steam Mill Road and reached the trailhead around 11:15, 2 hours and 15 minutes after leaving Hinesburg! The weather was cool and cloudy as we headed up the trail, but it was a lot drier than I’d feared it might be. When we reached the Long Trail we decided to head south to the summit of Battell Mountain, since we were so close. Since the trail skirts the summit, we wandered a couple hundred feet to see if we could find a summit canister. We couldn’t, but the area was covered with blowdowns, so it’s possible there used to be one that was on a now downed tree. We headed back north, taking a side trip to a viewpoint just before the Skylight Pond trail, then went down to visit Skyline Lodge, reaching it a little after 1 PM. There we met a SOBO through hiker (“Lightfoot”) drying out his gear in the shelter and a family taking their kids our for a first hike to the pond. After having some lunch we headed back down, reaching the car around 2:30, then returned to Hinesburg much more quickly via US 7 and Monkton Road. Participants: Nancy K., David Hathaway (leader).