When we woke up the morning of the hike, there was a news report that smoke-filled air from forest fires in Quebec had blown into Vermont. We weren’t quite sure what that would mean for our hike on the ridges of Mt. Mansfield.

We did our hike as planned – hike from Stevensville Trailhead up the Frost Trail, then across Maple Ridge Trail, down through the caves and narrow passages on Rock Garden Trail, then down Butler Trail back to the cars. We could smell the smoke much of the way and couldn’t see across the valleys, but on Maple Ridge we did get a little sun from above and could see the top of Mt. Mansfield.

Although the views weren’t great, we had a lot to keep us interested, including seeing a great display of recently opened lady slippers at the top of the Frost Trail and crawling under and over rocks on the Rock Garden Trail.

The hike with a snack on Maple Ridge and lunch at Butler Lodge took us four hours. It was a very enjoyable outing.

Sheri Larsen, leader, Rich Larsen, Phil Howard, Mary Keenan, Marjan Schugar, Linda Cooper, Lynda Hutchins