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(I apologize for the amount of photos in this post. The view was so beautiful, I need to share. Hope you don’t mind!)

(Continuation from Part I)…Why haven’t I ever heard of people getting to this point on Mount Mansfield?! Maybe because as soon as you overcome it, you’re exhausted, tired, anxious, hungry, nervous from the heights and ready to just soak in the view from the top. At least that’s what it was in my case (and it may have helped if I had pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast). I saw people go up with dogs (somehow) and they seemed fine. Maybe it was just me or maybe they had a teleportation device..  Again, “who came up with this idea anyway?!”

Low and behold (and also because I’m writing this), we made it to the top! Do I have any pictures of the rocks on the way up? Sure as hell don’t! I’ve never shook hiking. Ruffles my stomach just thinking about the steepness of the rocks mixed with the heights and my great imagination. My fear of heights is going no where. Doesn’t’ matter – we made it to the top!

The summit. Holy beautiful. The view, oh the view is awesome! Vermont, Lake Champlain, Canada, New Hampshire. You can see EVERYTHING! (The couple that we saw at the breaking point… both of them made it up as well!)

Check out this video from the summit (or almost… we started walking down and I forgot so it’s close enough!)

The summit is also the best spot to people watch….

• Mr. Green Mountain Man and I are sitting at the top and here we see Mr. Extreme Mountain Runner coming from the other direction. Jogging away like it isn’t anything. He literally jogs by us, reaches the highest point and then jogs away. We were both speechless. Mr. Extreme Mountain Runner…. May I please jump on your back so you can carry me down?!

• There was a guy and gal at the top helping to direct folks. Gal is talking to a random visitor who just hiked up and apparently they lived in the same area at some point. Convo goes something like this:

Gal: “You should come visit sometime!”
Random Guy: “Definitely, it was great meeting you.”
Gal: “Yea, bring some friends. Stay the night. You and your friends. Or just you.”
Hello proposition. Way to be bold lady!

• A fairly good sized group of Middlebury College kids came up the mountain right after we did. They were smart and prepared. Did I mention all I had to eat that morning was a meal bar and we didn’t’ bring lunch? Soon, they all settled down for lunch, pulling out bags of bagels, cheese, pretzels. I kid you not, I literally asked myself how fast I thought I could run if I grabbed one of those bagels and took off in the opposite direction. My response to myself was “not far”. That would’ve been a sight to see.

Meanwhile, I was taking lots of pictures!

After we got done taking photos and checking things out with the bino’s (because we were never going up there again)… we decided to take an alternate route down. Obviously. There were a couple other ways down, one called “Profanity Way”… surprising considering I thought I just got done hiking that one. Then, we came upon one that went to the Gondola at Stowe Resort. This should be fine… we’ll hike down some rocks. I mean, it CAN’T possibly be any worse than what we just came up and then taken the Gondola down.  Easy as pie, right?!… (Stay tuned for part III)

These mountains will always be my home! I love this state like no other!