Hiking to the top of Mount Ascutney in Vermont

Vermont has no shortage of mountains. Even the state gets its name from its famous Green Mountains (which in French, could be translated to Verts Monts). I was therefore really looking forward to hiking to a mountain on our Vermont road trip, and we finally got the opportunity to do that when we camped for a few nights at Mount Ascutney State Park.

Mount Ascutney is the highest point in Windsor County in southeastern Vermont. At an elevation of 954 metres (3,130 feet), this mountain is not part of the Green Mountains, but is instead considered a monadnock, an isolated hill that towers above a flatter area (in this case, the Connecticut River Valley lowlands).

There are four trails leading to the summit, including one that starts right from the state park campground where we were staying. However, we decided we would hike up what is probably the most popular trail to the summit: the Weathersfield Trail on the mountain’s south side.

The word Ascutney is said to come from several Abenaki words meaning “mountain of the rocky summit”. The very first mountain hiking trail in Vermont (and perhaps even in the United States) was established there in 1825. The mountain overlooks the surrounding area and is visible for miles, so I was quite eager to reach its summit.

Our hike started off gently, with a fairly gradual climb. The trail seemed well-maintained, with markers at regular intervals, and the rocks often arranged in the shape of stairs.

We crossed a stream, which was completely dry, and continued our climb slowly. I am used to mountain hikes, but for my partner, this was one of the steepest he had ever done. Fortunately, the climb was not too technical, and the trail offered us a few flatter sections to catch our breath.

At one point, we came across an intersection, leading to a detour to Crystal Cascade Falls. This detour would not have added too much distance to our hike, but we had read that the creek and its falls were completely dry, so we preferred to avoid the detour to focus on the main trail.

Especially since from this point, the climb became a little steeper. The trail was made up of several large roots that intersected and almost formed a staircase on the mountain. I love “rootsy” trails, and I thought that section was pretty cool.

At one point, we reached a first lookout, Harry’s Lookout, dedicated to a former volunteer and hiker, but the view was partially obscured with trees. A few metres further, we reached Gus’s Lookout, where we could start to see the surrounding landscape.

A few more metres further, we arrived at an intersection with a short detour leading to the west summit of the mountain. Normally I would have gone, but my partner was starting to get impatient to be done with this hike, so we continued along the main trail (which I regret a little now, since the west summit was only a few metres from where we were, and wouldn’t have been that much of a detour).

The last 500 metres continued to offer some steep and pretty sections, and after a good last push, we finally arrived at the rocky summit.

The summit of Mount Ascutney is a large rocky promontory, with tall antennas on top that take away some of its charm. But the real attraction of the mountain is not the summit itself, but rather the observation tower located there. From the top, we saw a magnificent 360-degree view. We could see the Green Mountains to the west, as well as the White Mountains in New Hampshire to the east (including Mount Lafayette, to which I hiked last summer).

We stayed at the top of the tower for a while to enjoy the view and rest a bit. Then we slowly started the descent, taking the same trail back down.

The descent was not too bad, except that it was starting to get quite hot and so we were really glad we had started our hike early in the day. When we got back to our vehicle, we had covered a total of 9 kilometres (5.6 miles), with a total elevation gain of almost 700 metres (2,297 feet).

It should be noted that it is also possible to drive to the summit from the state park campground (which we did not try, since we preferred hiking there). We also really enjoyed our camping experience at the state park. There are 38 sites, and we spent two very peaceful nights under the tall trees of the forest!