The nine of us met at the Worcester Mountain Trail trailhead at 8 am. First time hiking this trailhead and this summit, so it was an adventure from beginning as a few of hikers lost their GPS signals on way to trailhead thus had some detours before finding the trailhead. Parking area is a loop designed turnaround with parking along edges via angle parking. We consumed about 75% of the parking spots.
After brief review of hiking guidelines and introductions as we had one new hiker along this hike. Welcome John to our hike! We began our hike at approximately 8:15 am. We started out with us breaking into a couple groups due to pace variation with Ted sweeping for the hike and I started out leading. Susan, Ethan and I were up ahead in a short time as beginning was a gradual ascent at beginning. We arrived at a section of the hike where a steeper ascent began and we kept up the pace briefly but decided to take a breather and get the group back together as one. At this time I dropped back to sweep and Phil began leading the group. After dropping back from the group I decided to pick up my pace to catch up with the group. By this time Marcus and Ethan, those young whippersnappers, had begun leading the hike and were off at blistering pace at which time we did not see them until reaching the summit. The entire group arrived at the summit at 10 am at which time Ethan and Marcus greeted the group.
The summit was still in the clouds as weather called for partly cloudy day with clearing skies near noon but the temperatures were in the 60’s to low 70’s where comfortable in shorts and short sleeve shirt. Summit was slightly breezy, overcast and a fairly small summit. We headed over the summit to find a spot away from the breeze to break for some eats in a small tree cove. Took a selfie-group photo courtesy of Marcus before our break. Break for eats and conversation lasted about a half hour from about 10 am – 10:30 am with our descent beginning about 10:35 am. Immediately upon us beginning our descent the skies cleared and we began to have some views of surrounding summits and the beautiful tree foliage color change in the lower valleys. Everyone paused for pictures and gave a sigh of relief that we had some views. Ted pulled out his phone with peek finder app to determine we could see Killington Peak, Bald Mountain, and Mt Hunger to name a few. Trail was extremely dry with only conditions of trail were some water accumulation in a small section about 1.75 miles into the hike and near summit as some moisture from trees on rocks creating some slick rocks in a deceptive way.
We arrived back at the trailhead at approximately 12:15 pm. Another successful hike with beautiful temperatures but not too hot.
Hike participants: Tess Stimpson, Bamby Pierpont-Bates, John Rankin, Phil Hazen, Ted Albers, Marcus Keely, Ethan Arrowood, Susan Tobin, and Dale Schmit(leader). Photos: Marcus, Dale, Ted.
