Mt Starvation is a mountain in Vermont’s Worchester Vary simply exterior of Stowe and inside spitting distance of Mt Manfield, the state’s highest peak. Having sampled the Worchester Vary with a hike as much as a viewpoint known as Stowe Pinnacle final winter on a foggy day, I used to be desperate to return to get a transparent view of Mansfield and its subsidiary peaks.
For this hike, I teamed up with a really skilled group of hikers from the Inexperienced Mountain Membership’s Ottauquechee part who hike collectively incessantly. I’ve been sampling Vermont mountain climbing this summer season and networking with membership members since that’s probably the most expeditious strategy to meet hikers within the state.
The GMC is split into totally different geographic sections, however every can run journeys wherever within the state and even in neighboring New Hampshire. I’ve been signing up for GMC hikes that coincide with the Lengthy Path Aspect-to-Aspect path listing I’m engaged on, and I’ve additionally volunteered to steer my very own GMC hikes this month and subsequent to fulfill much more folks. I nonetheless hike solo, nevertheless it’s enjoyable to attach with new folks and find out about different mountain climbing and backpacking alternatives that I don’t find out about.
A number of totally different trails result in Mt Starvation, however for this hike, we climbed the Middlesex Path, which approaches the height from the south. From the summit, we descended to the Bob Kemp Path, hiked out to neighboring White Rocks Mountain, and lollipopped again to the Middlesex Path trailhead. The hike was about 6 miles with 2500′ of elevation achieve.
Discovering the Middlesex Path trailhead was half the journey because it’s in a lifeless cellular phone zone and requires traversing a number of dust roads. Navigating in Vermont is “fascinating,” to say the least, and I’ve discovered that driving with an in depth Delorme Highway Atlas is important since there are such a lot of dust roads crisscrossing the countryside.
The primary part of the Middlesex Path was a simple woods hike as much as the Bob Kemp path junction. From there, the path will get very steep earlier than turning right into a rock edge climb. I used to be glad that I’d worn my La Sportiva Wildcat Path Runners that day as a result of they’ve such excellent traction on naked rock, moist or dry.
The trouble was properly value it although since we had improbable views of Mt Mansfield over lunch on the summit. I might select all of Mansfield’s subsidiary peaks and visualize the paths that climb them.
We descended the West Aspect of Starvation to the Bob Kemp path and hiked out a spur to White Rock Mountain which is simply south alongside the Worcester Vary, scrambling over extra rock ledge en route. The views there have been equally spectacular from the bald summit.
The descent down the Bob Kemp Path was considerably simpler than the scrambles up the Starvation and White Rock. For those who go on this hike, I encourage you to take the route we did, going up the Middlesex Path and again down the Bob Kemp: climbing down the ledges on the Middlesex Path could be too sketchy. Anyway, this was a terrific route with a gaggle of very seasoned hikers. I’m positive I’ll join with them once more.
The Inexperienced Mountain Membership’s Waterproof Northeast Kingdom Mountain climbing Path Map is the very best paper map for this hike. It’s additionally out there as a digital map within the Avenza Maps App.
SectionHiker is reader-supported. We solely earn cash if you are going to buy a product by way of our affiliate hyperlinks. Assist us proceed to check and write unsponsored and impartial gear critiques, newbie FAQs, and free mountain climbing guides.
