Vermont Views and Brew Weekend

This Memorial Day Weekend we went to camp at Woodford State Park in Vermont. I had decided on this site because of the Views and Brews hiking list I found via Peakbagger. Turns out that we've most likely completed many of the hikes in NH. So I checked out the Vermont Chapter of the Views and Brews and decided that Bennington would be easy enough for us to get to.

On Sunday, a group of us decided to hike up Harmon Hill. We found the trail head easy enough just off of Rt. 9. We started up the steep, steep trail. The "steps" were tough but not too bad for our dog. It was his first hike out with us and he was eager to go. After pulled us up to the top of the trail we came to a lovely path through the woods.

All the rain had made it a bit buggy and muddy. Fortunately, there were some planks laid out us to avoid the mud. We were glad of if, unfortunately, the dog didn't feel it was necessary.

After such a strenuous hike up, the even trail was really a nice change of pace. We enjoyed the stroll through the woods. We met up with some other campers from our campground and a thru hiker. We asked a couple that we met up with at the summit to take our photo.

It was a hot hike and we all needed a rest. We snacked and had some water while we looked out over Bennington and the Taconic Range. As you can see the sky was a bit hazy.

We wandered our way back down the trail. Along the way we took some photos of the fungi and vegetation that we saw.

We found the "steps" down the path that we took slowly. The end of the hike came up quickly and we carefully crossed Rt. 9 to the car.

When we got back to our campsite and found the rest of our group had completed the second hike that was connected with this checklist. They said it was easy, so we thought about it for a second and decided to go. The trail was quite buggy and muddy but the view of the reservoir was pretty.

We returned to the campsite with one very muddy pawed dog. He was so tired that he plopped down and napped for hours.

We went to dinner at the Madison Brewing Co. that evening. Despite calling ahead with a reservation, they seemed extremely unprepared for us. The beer was okay, the food was pretty good, but the service was not so good. They did have a knight though.