Hiking Mount Pisgah-Not North Carolina

July 23, 2021                                                                   Most Recent Posts
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Today I returned to Lake Willoughby.  I had come here previously to check it out for kayaking and while here had hiked around the South side of the lake.  If you missed that and are interested, you can find that post here. 

While I was checking out the area, I’d seen a hike I’d like to do called Mount Pisgah.  So I’ve returned to do it.   I started from the hiker symbol in the upper left of the map and hiked the Mount Pisgah North Trail up to the summit and beyond to the starred * view point.  There weren’t as quite many viewpoints on the climb up any more as this map indicates and the summit, well more about that later.

I was familiar with Pisgah in the North Carolina mountains and was surprised to see it here too.  Later I looked it up and found that Pisgah means peak or height and was used to refer to the peak of Mount Nebo that Moses climbed to see the promised land.  Seems there are towns named Pisgah in Alabama, California, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and West Virginia.  Whew.   There are state parks, national forests and even a town in Wales named Pisgah. 

Like many trails this one started off on nice and wide.

But soon became narrow, muddy, rocky and sketchy.

Since I had to climb over, I thought I’d just sit for a bit.

Other obstacles on the way and small water features like the one on the right.

They added a lovely sound track.

The rocky trail climbed and climbed.

 

At points, it wasn’t all that clear where I was going.  follow the rocks I guess.

I ran into a group of young people working for a private contractor doing trail work.  They were trying to remove a huge boulder from the trail.  Not sure why. Hikers will wear a path around something that size.  Seemed to me taking out the trees obstructing the trail would have been a better use of their energy but I’m not the boss.

Nice fungi along the way for Paul.  An amazingly long and skinny stem on one and a short fat one on the other.

I reached the first * viewpoint on the map.  This is one that I could look back on from the farthest viewpoint on my hike later on.  It’s clear earlier I had only walked along a small portion of the south shore of this huge lake.  I love that there is no dam here.  Lake Willoughby is a Glacially carved long thin lake which resembles a Norwegians Fiord.  At it’s deepest it is 320 feet.  Its beautiful on the shore line and from up here.

My second viewpoint was growing over and was also a rocky ledge. It gave a nice framed look at the mountains beyond.

The third viewpoint gave a look back down Lake Willoughby the opposite direction from my first view today.

From here I could zoom in on some of Vermont’s renewable energy.

And then I reached the summit of Mount Pisgah.  Because it was the summit, I took a picture.  No views.

I thought it was funny but am glad they don’t artificially clear view points.  Luckily there are nice natural ones along the way.

Over the top and down the side a bit I found my last and the best view point.  When I got there, these folks had staked out the best spot and were having lunch.

I picked a spot a little higher and further back.

From there I could look back and up to the other view point I mentioned earlier  where other folks were now.

I’m not patient in most of my life but I am on a hike when waiting for folks to leave so I can have the spot or view of my choice and sure enough.. . .

On the way back down, I found that the crew had given up on trying to move that large rock and were  routing the trail around it.   I had to laugh.  I wonder if they are hikers too or just workers?

Of course since I came back the same route, it was no less rocky.  Glad it hadn’t rained or it would have been very slippery.

If time and rain allow, I want to return to Lake Willoughby for some kayaking.  Don’t think it’s a lake I can kayak the entire perimeter of  as I often do on lakes.