catdacker
07-10-2011, 04:28 PM
El and I drove to Rutland on Friday night and got a room in a small motel on Rt. 4. We drove down Wheelersville Road to check out the trail head and the road was closed due to the reconstruction of bridge no. 18. We then drove around to the other end of Wheelersville Rd. and were able to reach the PA. The next morning we hit the trail at 6:30 am and headed down the woods road with the pole across it. We had read many trip reports from VFTT and had them with us. We crossed the stream for the first time and headed up a nice wood road again. It took us away from the stream and 30 minutes later when we did not cross any stream we knew we were headed up Mendon. We took the road till it turned into a trail then it disappeared all together. We went up and broke out at a view and Ellen walked right by the canister. It was hard to get the top off and we had to tie the can back on the tree with a spare shoestring. We then wacked east over the false peak and over to the trail near Little Killington. We then headed north on the AT and bypassed the spur to Killington as we already hiked it. We went out to the ski area and took some pictures and then went back in to the AT and continued over to Pico. We hit the summit pile of rocks and had lunch sitting at a ski house near the top. We had been out 7 hours already and slowly headed back to Killington and the Bucklin Trail which we took down to the car. The weather was great, no humidity and views all day long. This took 10 hours and we saw many other hikers out on the trails. :)