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Mount Mansfield

Photo: Niranjan Arminius / CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

⛰️ Mountains

Mount Mansfield

Stowe, VT · Green Mountains, Vermont

About

Vermont's high point tops out at 4,393 feet, and from the valley floor the ridge reads as a face lying on its back: Forehead, Nose, Chin, Adam's Apple, with the Chin the true summit. Three ways up. The Auto Toll Road, a 4.5 mile gravel climb running since 1923, ends in a lot near the Nose. The Stowe gondola lifts riders to the Cliff House. Hikers take the Long Trail along the spine, 1.4 miles north from the toll road lot to the Chin over open rock. Stay on that rock: roughly 200 acres of Ice Age alpine tundra survive up here, one of three such pockets in Vermont, and it bruises easily. Timing decides everything. The toll road runs late May to mid October and the gondola mid June to mid October, mud season closes the trails into early June, and VT 108 through Smugglers' Notch shuts from late October until May.

Highlights

4,393 ft, Vermont's highestToll Road late May to mid OctGondola mid Jun to mid OctSmugglers' Notch shut in winterChin 1.4 mi from toll lotAlpine tundra, stay on rock

Getting there

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Curated guides that feature Mount Mansfield.

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