We met at the Richmond Park and Ride on I-89 at 8:30 AM, and took two cars (Wes rode with David) to the trailhead for the Waterbury Trail, and were on the trail by 9:10. The skys were overcast with low cloud cover, and there was a dusting (maybe an inch) of snow on the ground. Since it was hunting season, we all wore blaze orange vests belonging to the GMC Burlington Section that David had gotten on loan from Pam Gillis, and since none of us got shot, they must have worked. The lower stretches of the trail weren’t too bad, but about the time we got to the stream crossing the trail became very icy, and was pretty much continuous ice the rest of the way up. Rich and David donned micro-spikes, but Wes managed to continue without them all the way to the top using his hiking poles, falling only occasionally.

We reached the top around 10:50, but didn’t spend much time there since there were no views and it was fairly windy. On the way down we debated whether to take the side trip to White Rocks, as had been advertised in the trip description, but decided not to in deference to Rich’s knees and Wes’s lack of traction.

On the way down we passed a few other groups coming up, several of whom also were lacking any means of enhanced traction on ice, so Wes wasn’t the only one sliding up and down the mountain that day. We got back to the cars around 12:45 and headed home.

Trip leader: David Hathaway with Rich Larsen, Wes Volk