Tag Archives: Lake Dunmore

Keewaydin Caves Redux

I have made it a habit not to “redo” a post on a particular run, unless it has been a few years since I last blogged about the route. I am making an exception this time. In June of 2019, while trying to find a cave called “Speedy’s Cave” whose location I only had the vaguest memories of, I ended up not finding the cave in question, but had an adventurous and challenging “mostly hike”, as the terrain was too rough for running, along the midsection of the Rattlesnake Cliffs above Lake Dunmore. Most of this little adventure was on the trails maintained by Camp Keewaydin. A few of my readers mentioned that they would someday like to join me on this “run” someday, as it sounded interesting. So, on a pleasant Saturday morning, 5 of us set out. It wasn’t my intention, at the start of the journey, to write a blog posting on it, and as a result, I didn’t bring my camera, and didn’t even turn on my GPS watch until we were about 0.8 miles into things. Fortunately, my friend Josh, who joined us for the first part, had his camera with him, and all the new pictures here are his. For my first description of this route, with my photography, see my original posting:

The Wrong Way to the Keewaydin Caves

Yup! I thought I had gone the wrong way to find the “Speedy’s Cave” of my memory. I now know I was wrong about being wrong.

We set off from the Falls of Lana parking lot, taking the usual dirt road up, and when the trail made its first sharp hairpin to the right, we went straight, over the bridge, and up the easy section of trail until we saw the sign for the Aunt Jenny Trail, and we ascended this trail for a few minutes. The first tricky part of the routefinding in this trail is actually finding it. Many years ago, there was a sign here stating “Caves” to guide adventurous hikers, but as I discovered last year, that sign had been removed, and in fact, this year, several tree branches were laid across the faint trail to discourage errant hikers. That said, you will know that you are at the correct place if you see a small sign on one of the nearby trees saying “trail” and pointing along the far more apparent Aunt Jennie Trail. Some things about this cave trail haven’t changed – it is still a faint path, but with generally well marked blazes on trees. It also tortures hikers with countless dips and climbs for no apparent reason.

While I failed in re-finding Speedy’s Cave last summer, we quickly discovered that five pairs of eyes are better than one. Sure enough, in little more than a third of a mile along this trail, one of my party looked up above their feet (where one’s eyes usually are on rough terrain) and saw the sign for the cave! I think we had an advantage this year – a narrow sunbeam of light escaped the heavy foliage and illuminated the sign as if it was some sort of sacred shrine.

At this point, we scrambled uphill 50 feet or so to the mouth of the cave. As I remembered, it was a fairly spacious cave, and in fact, I could notice the remnants of a small campfire inside it. Unlike the far more extensive, truly subterranean Weybridge Cave, which demands a rappel to enter, the Keewaydin Caves are simply spaces created by rockfall from the cliff bands over the eons, and are generally small and cozy. Curious as to the origin of the name of this cave, a search of the history of Camp Keewaydin indicated that it was probably named after the name of a mid-20th century owner “Speedy” Rush.

Scrambling back down to the trail, we continued, and not long later, Sandra, a member of our group, looked up to the right, and shouted out that she thought she saw another cave, this time without any sign indicating its provenance. We bushwhacked our way up towards it, and at first glance, there didn’t seem to be much too it. Then, its discoverer noticed that she could squeeze under an overhang, and she headed in until all we could see were her feet sticking out. The arrow in the photo is putting at her well-camouflaged sneaker.

Knowing that we might be doing a little crawling around in caves, she was the only person who thought to bring a headlamp, and as she crawled in a little further, discovered that there was a large inner room that should prove accessible. No doubt this has been and will be a comfortable home for one or more wintering bears in a few months! None of us were really clothed to shimmy into it – so that will have to wait for another day, presuming we can find it again. Given that there was no sign affixed to this cave, naming it after some Keewaydin luminary, we decided that our party was the first there, and we named it after her discoverer – Sandra’s Cave it is!

After most of us did the short shimmy into the opening of the cave to glimpse the inner room, we returned once again to the trail, and commenced our zigzagging up and down the face of the Rattlesnake Cliffs, constantly on the lookout for the next white blaze. The next “named” location we came across was a viewpoint which I remembered (of course) from the previous year’s exploration – Jeff’s Lookout! I am not simply claiming as my own – there is an aging sign at the edge of the overlook claiming it for me.

.From this point on, following the route from the previous year, we came across the Cave trail sign, which went pretty much straight up the side of the mountain, bringing us in a few strenuous minutes to the only cave I managed to bag in my previous outing, “Curly’s Cave”, which was much smaller than Speedy’s Cave, but standing inside it, you had the feeling you were looking out from the throat of a monster – check out the teeth! I was unable to determine the origins of the Cave’s name, but I will ask some people I know who have been associated with the camp to find out.

Returning to the trail, we soon came to a sign for the Wildcat trail, which may have been the name for the trail we were on all along, As we got closer to the camp proper, the trails became better marked and easier to follow. One of the coolest parts of the descent to the camp was a cliffy area called The Deer Staircase. At some point in the last year and a half, someone had put in a few log ladders, making the descent far easier than it had been in the past. I am not going to go into the details of the rest of the descent – all downhill trails probably lead to the main grounds of the camp and the East Shore road. When we got to the dirt road called “The Summit Trail” we were able to resume running for the first time in about two hours, and eventually ran back to our cars alongside the main road.

This was a very fun little adventure that took up pretty much the whole morning. Running options were sparse, as the terrain was quite rough and the trail maintenance meager. Given the late start on my GPS watch, the journey was longer than shown, probably a little over 5 miles. My watch recorded 1400 vertical feet of climbing, but since the first easy sections weren’t included, it was probably closer to 1700 or 1800. That’s a lot of up and down – and to put it in perspective, the ascent of Mt Abraham, the nearest big mountain, is only 1500 ft.

The Wrong Way to the Keeywaydin Caves

Due to a busier than usual spring, it has been a while since my last posting, and it feels good to be back on the trails. I also had the realization that this month constitutes the 10th anniversary of this blog, so I should really come up with a run that was suitably adventurous. I was not disappointed! Many years ago, while exploring the trails on the Lake Dunmore side of Moosalamoo, I stumbled across a minor trail leading to a small rock cave, with a sign labeling it as “Speedy’s Cave”, if my memory served me correctly. In the ensuing years, I have heard of the slopes below the Rattlesnake Cliffs harboring several well and not so well known caves. Unlike the technically challenging subterranean Weybridge Cave, the caves above Lake Dunmore, sometimes refered to as the “Keeywaydin Caves” due to their location on the private, but not posted property of Camp Keeywaydin, were made from rockfall from the cliffs above, and are small, with barely enough room for a few people to stand, at best. Nonetheless, I hoped to retrace my steps from many years ago to find the cave of my memory, and see if there were any others along the trail.

I started off at one of my favorite trailheads, the Falls of Lana parking lot just south of Branbury State Park, and ran up to the point, at about a half mile, where the trail makes a sharp hairpin turn to the right to ascend to Silver Lake. Instead, I went straight, as if I was ascending the Rattlesnake Cliffs, and shortly afterwards took the branch to my left on the Aunt Jennie Trail. I had vague memories of a small sign pointing to a weak, left turning trail at some point on the ascent, which brought me pretty easily to the cave. Sure enough, about a mile into my run, I saw a weak left-turning trail, but the sign, instead of pointing to “caves” as in my remembrance, there was only a sign making sure that people stayed on the well-maintained forest service trail. Nonetheless, I assumed that this was the trail that I was looking for. Wrong.

About 50 yards into this trail, I began to question whether I was on a legitimate trail, or some sort of herd path, but as I ran around a corner, I found a forest service sign reminding me that I was not on a private trail (Camp Keeywaydin‘s presumably), not one of their trails, and that, combined with relatively recently painted white blazes on occasional trees told me that I was on what had been, at least at one time, a trail.

Pretty soon along this trail, the terrain got very rugged. The trail felt very reminiscent of the herd paths I experienced in the Adirondacks while working towards my 46’er membership 20+ years ago. It was narrow, rocky, obscured by leaves, and seemed to pay no attention whatsoever to the sense of contemporary trail design and maintenance. In other words, it made for wonderful adventurous exploring, but terrible running. To put the next two miles in perspective: I typically run 9-10 minute miles on most trails, maybe slowing down to 15 minute miles on challenging terrain. A typical hiking pace on maintained mountain trails is 2.5-3 miles per hour. It took me 80 minutes to cover the next two miles.

It took some basic routefinding skills to find my way through this section. It is very important to be constantly making note of your surroundings on terrain like this, so that in the frequent cases when backtracking was required, I found myself back to where I was last confident I was on the trail. Fortunately, there were enough white blazes so that in the very frequent sections where the trail disappeared, or was obscured by fallen trees, I could look around for a blaze. If I didn’t see one, I backtracked. Did I say I did a lot of this? Being constantly on the lookout at the terrain made it difficult to even run slowly, as the uneven terrain made it important to watch my feet, in turn missing blazes! I also realized that I was not on the trail of my memories, as I didn’t remember it being this rough, and there was no sign of “Speedy’s Cave”. I wasn’t worried about getting lost – the topography was simple enough, and I knew that buswhacking uphill would take me to the summit of Moosalamoo, although the little section called “the Rattlesnake Cliffs” might make that challenging, and I knew that there were cliff bands below me, albeit not as extensive. And, the fact that there were blazes told me that I had to be going somewhere. That said, I was about ready to turn around, when I received a sign from the gods that this was where I was meant to be: A sign on a lookout, with a lovely view of Lake Dunmore. What did the sign say? Jeff’s Lookout! So, of course I had to keep going. Curiously, on the next tree there was a much older sign, with the word “lookout” still legible, but with an otherwise unreadable name, but not Jeff, above it. Apparently Jeff usurped this cliff from someone else at some point!

From this point, the trail zigzagged up and down the side of the hill, for reasons that were not at all apparent from the terrain. This grousing aside, this was a very pretty section, with several more overlooks, some named with signs, some not. But running was very much out of the question. The least obscured overlook bore no name that I could discern, but it shows just how pretty the views of the lake could be.

A little further on, I finally found the first true trail marker – a sign saying that the trail I was joining was called “The Wildcat Trail”, which seemed to follow the hillside, continuing north, and another arrow pointing straight up the mountainside, indicating that it was the most direct way to the Rattlesnake Cliffs. Years ago, I had noticed a discretely marked and precipitous trail descending from the cliffs, and decided against ascending them this way, at this time. Not long after this, I saw a sign pointing up the hill……called..(drum roll please) THE CAVE TRAIL!

The ascent at this point was very scrambly, and I may well have been the first person to ascend it this year. But, after not too long, I found myself at a small cave called “Curly’s Cave” and standing inside it, looking out, I felt like I was in the mouth of a monster, looking past the teeth. I can imagine that this must be a favorite for Keeywaydin and Songadeewin campers.

After the cave, I kept going up the steep incline, hoping that the trail might veer to the south, perhaps even connecting with the now distant Speedy’s cave, but the trail instead took a turn to the south, so I decided to backtrack to the start of the Cave Trail, and continue on the increasingly strong trail heading towards the camp. One last adventurous section was where the trail descended a cliff band known as the “Deer Staircase”.

This trail eventually joined a well worn, double track trail called “Steve’s Trail” where I arbitrarily chose to go left, finally running full stride for the first time in well over an hour, eventually joining “The Summit Road” – a dirt road, finally joining Rt 53 across the road from Camp Keeywaydin. All that was left now was a mile and a half of roadside running, dodging cars, to return to my vehicle. This was quite possibly the slowest 5 miles I have ever done in Vermont – the first mile, and the last two miles were real running, but one two mile section in the middle was some of the roughest terrain I have been on for a long time. Check out the altitude profile! All the ups and downs on this run/hike/scramble added up to about 1500 feet of climbing and descent, and this relatively short distance ended up taking me almost 2 hours. In other words, it was a fun little local adventure. I look forward to trying to find Speedy’s Cave later this summer, and if successful, I will post it to this blog.

Finally, I have been led to believe that the trails of Camp Keeywaydin are open to the public, but I would guess that they would rather we not use them, at least close in to the camp, while camp is in session. I will check in with a friend on their permanent staff to clarify this, and will make an addendum to this post when I know for sure.

Altitude Profile

Aunt Jennie

One of the most popular “hikes to a view” in Addison County, is the hike up to the Rattlesnake Cliffs on the lower slopes of Mt Moosalamoo, where there are spectacular views of Lake Dunmore to the east, Silver Lake to the north, and the main ridge of the Green Mountains to the west. Over the last decade or so, this viewpoint has become a little bit more challenging to access, as the return of nesting peregrine falcons has necessitated closure of this popular viewpoint from early spring to the beginning of August, limiting this lovely overlook to late summer and fall (except for the hardy winter hikers and skiers) so that the falcons can have their babies in peace.

Hiking up to the Rattlesnake Cliffs from the popular Falls of Lana/Silver Lake trailhead, just south of Branbury State Park leads to two possible ascending trails. The longer, but gentler Rattlesnake Cliff Trail, described in an earlier blog, and the more direct, steeper Aunt Jennie Trail. Based on a few conversations with old-timers in the area, I became interested in who the eponymous Aunt Jennie was, and what her connection to the trail or area was. And I am not an old-timer yet – not quite. A little bit of easy googling came up with the answer – Aunt Jennie was a woman who ran a popular eatery on flat lot, formerly the site of the old Falls of Lana trailhead, a quarter mile closer to the falls than the current location. A short writeup mentioning Aunt Jennie, as well as her teahouse (the picture of the teahouse provided by Bill Powers, a local historian) can be found on the Lake Dunmore Association blog, from a few years ago.

The run up to the Aunt Jennie Trail begins much like many of my other runs in the region, from aforementioned Falls of Lana trailhead. After the first short climb, the trail up to Silver Lake takes a sharp hairpin turn to the right, but to head up to the Rattlesnake Cliffs, one goes straight, taking a turn to the left over a footbridge put in place after the 2008 flooding which took out an older bridge. After crossing the Sucker Brook, turn right, and after a short run, the well-labeled Aunt Jennie trailhead appears to the left. I hadn’t hiked up this trail in many years, but as expected, it was significantly steeper than the longer Rattlesnake Cliffs trail. While the longer trail is gradual enough to be good uphill running over much of its length, I would have to say that, at least at my current climbing ability, less than a quarter of the Aunt Jennie trail is actually runnable, so most of this rapid ascent is more a power hike, with a few faster footsteps when it levels off in a few places. After about ¾ of a mile, the Aunt Jennie Trail ends, and a left turn, joining the Rattlesnake Cliff Trail will take one to the left turn, well signed, leading to the Rattlesnake Cliffs for the great views.

Heading towards the cliffs, I noticed something was different. In the past, there were two separate cutoffs to cliff overlooks. The first cutoff led to the prominent ledges on the East face, and somewhat to the north. When I found myself on the south facing cliffs, I wondered how I missed the first turnoff. Further exploration, led to another short trail that I didn’t think had been there in the past, leading to the great views of Lake Dunmore to the east.

At this overlook, I was treated to a dozen or so huge birds sailing around me, often very close, and landing on nearby ledges. Were these peregrine falcons? Were these some other proud raptor, like red tail hawks? Nope – they were plain old turkey vultures, but watching them, I developed an appreciation for some birds that would be considered lovely, if not for their tiny heads, and carrion-eating habits. Who knew we had so much food for them here? If they are attracted by the scent of rotting carcasses, what does that say about the scent of a very sweaty trail runner?

Turkey Vultures

Looking down at the lake, getting increasingly empty as the summer season winds down, I saw a lone speedboat, tugging a lucky waterskier, leaving patterns in the water that reminded me of old Spirograph artistry.

Spirograph wake

On my return, I stopped for a few moments at the overlook, facing to the south, including Silver Lake, Lake Dunmore, and in the distance, Fern Lake. Is it my imagination or colorblindness, or are the first little bits of orange starting to creep into the foliage?

South Views from Rattlesnake Cliffs

Looking more carefully on my return, I did manage to see the trail to the “old” Lake Dunmore overlook. It no longer had any signage, and it looked as if trail maintenance crews had tried to obscure its presence. My suspicion is that this overlook is being discouraged to keep hikers away from the main falcon-roosting area, but I don’t know the full story here – anyone with something to add to this, please feel free to post your comments!

For the descent, after realizing that the Aunt Jennie Trail was fine for fast hiking, but not running, I chose to descend the longer Rattlesnake Cliffs trail, which, while longer, made for a faster descent due to its runnability over most of its length. When I reached the bottom of the trail, I added in one last short section, in order to include some other “Aunt Jennie” history. Instead of turning left at the bottom of the trail to return to my parked car, I turned right for about a quarter of a mile, to explore the site of Aunt Jennie’s teahouse. I had recently learned of an inscription in the rock facing this flat section, honoring Jennie. It was easy to find – when you hit the rock ring, continue to the nearby rock face, and if you look carefully, you can see where the moss was recently removed, leading to the professional inscription. It is a little bit hard to read in my picture, but it states:

In Memory of

Jennie Dutton Rickert

Aunt Jennie

1866-1932

All that I am and all

I ever hope to be I owe to my mother

A little bit of further research shows that this is nearly identical to a quote made by Abraham Lincoln about his own mother!

Aunt Jennie Epitaph

A short trot back to my car made this run/climb a little bit more than 5 miles long, with a challenging 1500 ft of climb and descent!

Altitude Profile

Chandler Ridge and Leicester Hollow

Some of my favorite posts to this blog are when I get a chance to describe a trail that I have never before experienced, and discover something that I find interesting along the way. Then, there are the old favorites – the runs that I come back to, usually for some combination of appropriate challenge and natural beauty. This posting falls into the latter category. If you chat with local avid trail runners, the loop I am describing today almost invariably ends up being mentioned on people’s favorite trails. I have described this run in the past, but since my blog is not well indexed, I thought I would write up a fresh posting, so that newer readers learn of it. This run is a favorite, largely because it incorporates many of the characteristics of what a lot of us are looking for in a trail run. It has climbs, descents, scenic vistas, and thick forest. Once in a while, you see a bear on this loop (that has happened twice for me, but not this time, alas) and the trails used are either broad double track, or single track with good footing, so that you rarely have to walk due to the trail conditions, although there is no dishonor if you need to do so for a break!

On a cool, slightly overcast Sunday morning, a large group of local trail runners got together – some, like me, knew the trail well, and others were “Chandler Ridge virgins” looking forward to seeing this well-loved trail. Due to the coolness of the morning, the mosquitoes weren’t bothering me at all, but a few of my running partners seemed to be doing a modest amount of swatting. The key lesson here – is always run with a friend who the bugs like more than you! We started the run with the well traveled forest service road climbing steeply up to Silver Lake. It was still pretty early in the morning, so we saw few walkers, although we did see a sign indicating that this part of the trail was being used for the now-legendary “Infinitus” event happening up at Blueberry Hill, and the surrounding trails. The centerpiece of Infinitus is an 8-day, 888 Km run, that only a handful of runners have actually completed. I was hoping to cross paths with some of these runners, just to see how much of a mess they were at this point, but none happened to be on this section of trail as we were ascending (or later on, descending). Andy, the race director’s quirky sense of humor was on display with his race signs, written both “rightside up” and “upside down” – perhaps for the amusement and/or confusion of the more delirious runners.

Infinitus Race Signage

Once our group coalesced on the shores of Silver Lake, we took the right turn over the dam and posed for a group photo, admiring the little hillock in the distance which would be the altitude high point for the day. The dam on Silver Lake is part of the small hydroelectric project, in which the originally naturally occurring lake was enhanced by the dam to store water for the power plant down on the Lake Dunmore road.

Our Better Side

After crossing the damn, we headed left, on true single track along the east shore of Silver Lake, and after about a half mile, we came to a trail junction, with the right turn switchbacking for a few minutes up to the Chandler Ridge, and the left junction to the trail hugging the shore around the lake. We chose the right trail, and a word for the wise – the left fork in the road, staying close to the lake is very poor for running, although it does make for a pretty and interesting hike. After our crew snaked up the west slopes of the Chandler Ridge, we found ourselves up on top, on a trail which sometimes hugged the west (left to us), Silver Lake side of the narrow ridge, and sometimes hugged the east (right to us) Lake Dunmore side, with frequent views through the trees. The trail up here is in great shape, due to the work done in the aftermath of the 2008 deluge which made a mess out of several of the trails in the area. After about a mile on this ridge, we came to a clearing (which was created during the aforementioned trail maintenance) looking back towards Silver Lake, above its southern terminus, also at the high altitude point of the run. As I stopped for a picture, a few of my more keen-eyed running friends spied a bald eagle in the distance. Squinting as hard as I could, I tried to make it out, but couldn’t seem to focus on it. While bald eagles have made a comeback in Vermont, as in most of the rest of the US, I still have never seen one in Vermont, and I am afraid that my streak continues.

Silver Lake and Mt Moosalamoo

At this point, we had a few more miles on the Chandler Ridge, staying high on the ridge until the very end, where after a short descent, we connected with the Minnie Baker trail, where we took a right turn, and then a left shortly afterwards. At the second turn to the left, a right turn will bring you down to the Lake Dunmore Road, rt 53, and sometimes early in the season when I know that the shady trail in Leicester Hollow will be covered in snow and ice, I elect to return to my car this way, on the road – but not today! Soon, we had turned around, and were heading north, on the ridge above the stream below. Prior to the 2008 storm, there was an old stage road, built to provide access to the old Silver Lake Hotel, down alongside the banks of this stream, but it was badly washed out in the storm, necessitating the newer trail which we were running on. The gradually climbing trail hugs this ridge for about a mile or so, before descending to the stream, crossing a modern footbridge, and mostly following the old stage road for most of the rest of the ascent back up to Silver Lake. The scenery here is very lush, so much so that I heard one of my running partners refer to it as “Fern Gully”, an apt description.

Fern Gully

Eventually, the west shore of Silver Lake appeared on our left, and after passing by signs for some of the primitive campsites, as well as a modern outhouse (who knows – this fun fact might be important to you someday, although I discovered once, the hard way, that it is locked shut in the winter) we took the left turn to the lakeshore picnic area and the small beach. On hot days, this is a great place to take a dip in the cold lake water, but most of the party decided that the air was still too chilly to be enthusiastic about a swim today, so after pausing to enjoy the scenery for a few minutes, we began the fast descent to our cars. About a half mile down the hill from Silver Lake, we passed the trail to the left, leading to what is called “Lenny’s Lookout” (as signed). I have often wondered who Lenny is, and while doing some research for this posting, I found out! The Lenny in question is Lennie Waltrip, the long-time summer campground host on the shores of Silver Lake. I have stopped to chat with him on several occasions, but prior to this discovery, had no idea what his name is. This summer, there was a much younger looking man serving as campground when we passed through, so I hope old Lennie, who would be in his late 80’s, is OK!

Returning to our vehicles, this ended up being a slightly less than 12 mile run, with a lot of climbing and descending, although most of it gentle except for the first and last mile and a half ascending to and descending from Silver Lake. Thanks to my running friends for joining me on this!

Google Earth of Chandler Ridge/Leicester Hollow

Altitude Profile

A previously written (2011) posting on the same route, with a few different insights.

Back to the Springtime Trails

This year’s never-ending winter seems to have loosened its grip – there are only a few stray patches of snow at the higher elevations, and my legs seem to be recovering from my first 26.2 in a year and a half, undertaken a week and a half ago. A lot of my friends ran in the Middlebury Maple Run this Sunday, but my legs didn’t feel recovered enough yet for a decent half marathon, so I decided to head out to one of my favorite runs – the ascent from the Falls of Lana trailhead, past Silver Lake, to the Goshen trailhead and returning. I know I have done this run countless times, and blogged it quite a few times as well. But, I almost always do this run as one of my first trail runs of the warm season. The long mornings in the treadmill in the depths of winter and a few months of all my outdoor running being on the roads is finally giving way to the best part of the running year. This particular run is a great way to test out my legs on a trail which isn’t as muddy as most of the single track trails in May, and I get to see how things feel when I start to mix some more serious hills into my running. Finally, it is fun to see how my times improve as the summer progresses, so this first trail run of the season will serve as a benchmark for later runs!

A few recent articles in Runners World have put Middlebury on the map as a great runners’ town, and for road runners, this is probably due to the popularity of the Maple Run, while the TAM gets a lot of good press for trail runners. As relative newcomers start to look for more adventurous terrain than the TAM has to offer, the Moosalamoo region, which this run is part of, offers a fun step up. There are trail races ranging from the challenging, but accessible (The Goshen Gallop, 6.6 miles) to the longer challenges (The Moosalamoo Ultra 14 or 36 miles) to the downright ridiculous (Infinitus – up to 888 miles over 8 days!) The run I am blogging today provides a nice introduction to trail runners interested in a little wilder than the TAM offerings! When I started enjoying this run, 10-15 years ago, I never saw another trail runner on while I was runnin, but now, it is rare that I don’t cross paths with other runners enjoying it.

The run starts at the Falls of Lana parking lot, the large lot on the right, just south of Branbury State Park. I just learned the origins of the name “Branbury” by the way. It is not the name of some famous settler, politician or benefactor – it is simply an amalgamation of Brandon and Salisbury – the two nearest towns. How creative……. I usually skip the short connector trail that heads diagonally up from the parking lot, instead heading north on the road towards Branbury for just a few yards, taking a right onto the gated forest service road which climbs steeply from the start, before leveling off and crossing under the penstock. What the heck is a penstock? I just happen to have the answer in a previous post. After a series of hairpin turns, the trail climbs relentlessly towards Silver Lake. I was concerned about how passable I would find the trail, as it is still early spring, and we had a few very windy days where a lot of trees got knocked down. Fortunately, the trail crews had already made short work of the many down trees, with the only sign being their trailside debris.

Trail Maintenance

Continuing up, I reached the shores of Silver Lake after a mile and a half. For most casual hikers, this is the point of the trip up from Lake Dunmore, but looking for higher mileage, and more climbing, I stayed on the trail, which after another short, steep climb, veered to the right to reach the high point, a few hundred feet above Silver Lake, at the Goshen parking lot. This lot has a bit of a bad reputation for car break-ins, so I rarely use it. I was comforted, however, to see a Forest Service vehicle parked there, perhaps providing a little deterrent to window-smashing wannabees.

Forest Service Patrol Car

At the far side of the parking lot, the obvious trail down begins, and after about a quarter mile, the right turn at the trail junction begins the descent to Silver Lake, in earnest. Running down this one section of true single track trail, I heard some scampering sounds in the woods, and reminded myself of the usual adage – “If you can hear it, it is just a squirrel”. However, at one point, I turned around and saw my first bear of the season bolting up the hill, a few yards behind me, and getting away from me as quickly as it could. My guess was that it was running away from whatever I was running away from. That said, it is always a rush to see these magnificent animals, and I stopped to watch it amble away, made all the easier by the lack of foliage at this altitude, this easy in the season. Someday I will get a decent picture of one of my bear incidents!

As the bear disappeared into the forest, I resumed my run down the hill, reaching the Leicester Hollow trail, where I turned right, passing by a few groups of hikers, letting them know of what they had just missed. When the sign for the Silver Lake picnic area appeared on the left, I took it, coming to the bridge over the sluiceway bringing water down to Silver Lake from the Sucker Brook Reservoir, a mile or so away at higher altitude. Sometimes, this sluiceway is dry, as Green Mountain Power tries to collect the water in the higher reservoir to save it for high electricity demand in the summer months, I presume. The rush of the water told me that they had to let some out – I bet the reservoir is pretty full at the moment due to the sudden snow melt! I hope to run up there soon to see.

Roaring Sluiceway

From here, I ran along the shore of Silver Lake – a great place to take a dip during summer runs, and returned to the forest service road, for the high speed plunge back to my car. The footing was usually good enough to just let my legs cut loose, but some glute tightness the next day reminded me that this was the first serious downhill run of the season. Returning to my car, this ended up being about a 5.5 mile run, with about 900 feet of climbing and descent. Challenging, but not overly so, by Vermont standards at least. If you haven’t run up here – give it a try. It can also be a great place to put in a good workout in the heat of the summer – it is typically 5-10 degrees cooler there, between the shade and the swimming spots.

Finally, this is the beginning of the 10th year of this blog. I have some really fun “bucket list” runs in the planning, which I hope some of my friends can join me on. Hoping we all have a great summer!

Google Earth of the run

Altitude Profile

Hunting Season Running

It’s been a while since I last posted to this blog – a very busy fall, and a nagging injury which kept me to shorter runs have diminished my ability to blog new runs. And of course, over the last few weeks, the woods have been full of hunters for deer rifle season. I have nothing against hunters – in fact, they are in most ways, the natural allies of trail runners and hikers, as they do a lot of lobbying to maintain public access to private lands. That said, I have had a few scary situations in the woods over hunting season, and as a result I am more than happy to let them have their few short weeks in the late autumn.

That said, as my leg injury recovered, I was eager to get out for a longer run. One of the great things about this time of the year in Vermont, is that there are no tourists around at all (and who can blame them – stick season is one of the low points of the year), and as a result, the roads serving summer tourism are pretty empty. So, country roads in pretty places, which might be busy during the summer, become good places to duplicate at least some of the pleasures of trail running. One of my favorite runs in the deep of winter, when many of the trails are difficult to access on foot, is the loop road around Lake Dunmore. This is a 10 mile loop on mostly paved road, but with the leaves long gone from the trees, it offers many more vistas of the lake itself than can be seen from the road during the summer.

I met up with a bunch of running friends on Sunday afternoon, meeting up at the Waterhouses Marina (with its ample parking) and we set off on a leisurely run around the lake during peak stick season. The marina, which always seems so busy during our far-too-short Vermont summers was empty, and most of the gear was stashed away for the soon to come snows.

Waterhouses Marina

We headed south, taking the left turn skirting the less developed southwest shore of the lake, before taking the next left turn onto Rogers Road, past the south shore of the much smaller Fern Lake, before turning back north along VT 53. As a rule, I avoid running on roads which are busy enough to warrant a double yellow line down the middle, but only a handful of cars passed us as our run continued. On our left a series of short access roads led to some of the summer homes that line the lake. Some of these names are descriptive, such as Isthmus Road, which crosses the narrow ridge between Lake Dunmore and Fern Lake. Some are generic, with names like “Indian Trail”. And then there are some, which are probably some sort of inside joke or Easter Egg, such as the private road shown in the picture above, which I snapped as my friends sped off into the distance.

Curious Road Sign

As we got approached the Silver Lake Trail, we made the decision on the spot to add a few hilly miles to the run, with the 3 mile round trip to the shores of this higher altitude lake. While being respectful of hunters, I realized we hadn’t heard a shot all afternoon – not prime time for bagging a buck, so we decided to go for it. As we got higher and higher, we saw slowing increasing snow, but still nowhere nearly enough to impede our running. As expected, the lake level was low, due to the dry summer and the fall drawdown in preparation for spring thaws in a few months.

Early Winter at Silver Lake

Descending back to Rt 53, we enjoyed the now brilliant sunshine, as the clouds from the start of the run had apparently melted away. I enjoyed a quiet moment, looking at some cottages reflecting in the still water from the Kampersville Beach, before completing my run with a left turn down the homestretch of the West Shore Road.

North Cove Dunmore Reflections

As I finished the run, I checked my old faithful Garmin GPS watch which registered at just over 13 miles for this Sunday afternoon jaunt. I usually post the GPS trace on Google Earth when I do these posts, but this time, as I got home to sync up my watch, it no longer turned on, and I realized that its 9 year life-span had come to an end. So – no more GPS traces until I get its replacement. Good thing it is the Christmas season!

Rattlesnake Cliffs

Here it was, the last Sunday of my summer vacation, on a spectacular, cool, clear Sunday afternoon. I knew I had some class prep to get ready, but I also knew that if I didn’t get out for at least a short run, I would be kicking myself. So, I headed for one of my favorite trailheads, the Falls of Lana trail just south of Branbury State Park, and decided to try and run up to the prominent cliffs behind the state park, known as “Rattlesnake Point” or “Rattlesnake Cliffs“.

The name of this prominent landmark undoubtedly brings up rather scary connotations for some hikers – I mean who wants to climb a cliff named after a poisonous snake? Curious as to the presence or absence of these reputedly dangerous vipers, I contacted Jim Andrews of Salisbury, and herpetologist extraordinaire, and asked him “Are there really rattlesnakes up there?” His response was, as follows:

“…that is a definite historic site with solid documentation of collection of rattlesnakes for snake oil by local families. However, we have no proof that rattlesnakes continue to exist in that area. It has been many decades since anyone has provided solid evidence of rattlesnakes there. That said, there have been a few reports over the last few decades from people who believe they have seen rattlesnakes in that area, but none of them took photos, or even described the snake well enough to confirm the sighting.”

There you go – I think it is safe to say that you can hike or run on the Rattlesnake Cliffs without your snakebite kit!

Comforted by this information, I headed up the hill on the Silver Lake Trail, as I have done countless times on my runs up to equally well-visited Silver Lake, but at the switchback to the right after about a half mile, instead of following the main trail, keep going straight, taking the bridge across Sucker Brook, following the Rattlesnake Trail. This trail climbs pretty steadily, but fortunately, never particularly steeply. A lot of mountain trails, particularly on the Long Trail, or in the Adirondacks get either too rocky or too steep for running, but this trail was runable, at least to me, for about 90% of it’s length.

After climbing about 2 miles, a left turn to the actual cliffs comes up, and is easily recognizable by a warning sign, warning hikers and runners to stay away from the cliffs from April until the end of July while the peregrine falcons nest. But, since it is September, the coast is clear, and I finished my ascent heading straight on the trail to the west facing cliffs overlooking Lake Dunmore.

Lake Dunmore View

I hung out at this overlook for a few minutes, chatting with a couple from North Carolina, before following a weak herd path to the viewpoint facing south towards Silver Lake and the southern end of Lake Dunmore – another stunning late summer view. In the picture below, Silver Lake is the small body of water in the left center of the photo, while Lake Dunmore and Fern Lake are on the right. On the way back towards the Rattlesnake Trail, I met up with the North Carolina folks – apparently they had tried to follow me on the unmarked path I had followed, and had gotten a little bit lost before backtracking and reaching this place on more established trails!

Silver Lake View

The descent was fast and fun – since the trail makes a broad switchback on the south side of the mountain, it rarely gets too steep to run on the descent. Returning to my car, I saw that this was “only” a little over 4.5 miles, but with a 1200 ft vertical climb, and a great way to end the summer.

Google Earth projection of the Rattlesnake Cliff run

Altitude Profile Rattlesnake Cliffs

The Middlebury Blog Network

Selected Posts from the Midd Blogosphere

Tag Archives: Lake Dunmore

Keewaydin Caves Redux

The Wrong Way to the Keeywaydin Caves

Aunt Jennie

Chandler Ridge and Leicester Hollow

Back to the Springtime Trails

Hunting Season Running

Rattlesnake Cliffs