Seven of us met at the Richmond park and ride at 8:30 on a beautiful cool, sunny day. After waiting a few minutes for a couple maybes, we took four cars up, leaving two at the Monroe Trailhead and then taking the other two to the Bamforth Ridge trailhead at the Winooksi River.

We were on the trail around 9:30. A couple hikers who were in the lead lost the trail at one point, where the trail climbs steeply along the right side of a large rock outcrop, but after a few minutes and a couple cell phone calls there found their way back to the rest of the group. The weather was absolutely perfect. Conversation along the way included map and compass navigation and ash and beech tree and identification.

The trip leader was the slowest of the group, with the excuse of having recently recovered from a bout with COVID, but we still made pretty good time all the way. We reached the Alpine Trail junction around 12:30, the hut clearing around 1:45, and the summit around 2:10. At the summit we saw someone celebrating Independence Day early with a large American flag. We got back to the cars around 4:15.

Participants: Julie Cimonetti, Liana Edwards, David McColgin, Laura Williams, Taro Williams, Hanako Williams, David Hathaway (leader).