Waterbury Reservoir

After a windy, wet, and cold day on Sat it was calm, warm, and almost sunny on Sun. A nice day to be out moving about. I went to Waterbury Reservoir kayaking. I had not been there in a few years. I put in at the ramp near the dam and took my first left past the state park and back toward the river. This is a pretty nice long paddle and with calm waters it is a great place for the kayak. Lots of interesting reflections, again, as you get in completely calm waters. A few boaters out but not many and they were mostly over on the part of the lake with the access from Waterbury. Too many pictures below but the scene was constantly changing with all of the reflections.

Camels Hump in the distance

Mouth of river

Long Trail from Richmond

The night before the weather forecast called for a cloudy day with no rain. When I woke up it was raining and the forecast had changed to rain but stopping at around 12:00. I got to the trailhead in Richmond at 11:00. Always hard to start hiking in rain. Somehow much easier if it starts while you are out there. This is a long hike, maybe 12+ miles and has almost a 4000 foot elevation gain. Interesting stretch of trail with lots of ridge walking and interesting terrain. It did rain for the entire day though. The top was windy and cold and certainly no view. On the plus side there was no one on the trail except for the people I saw in the last .3 miles which is a shared section with other trails.

View from the top

Lake Arrowhead

I have not been kayaking in Lake Arrowhead before. I drive by it going to Smugglers Notch a lot in the winter. The lake is formed from a dam on the Lamoille river. It is actually good for kayaking since it is very shallow except for a band of deep water, running roughly along the western edge. Motor boats can't get into most areas because of the water depth. Some areas are full of logs that have lodged up against shallow sand bars. There were very few boats out on this day which is surprising for Memorial day weekend. I saw 1 motor boat and perhaps 5 kayaks.
I started going up stream from the launch. This goes under a few bridges and turns into shallow rapids quickly so I turned around. Heading back I went through shallow areas which had a lot of nesting birds and sand bars to avoid. The lake is long. I made it maybe 2/3 of the way down it before turning around. I did not see the dam that is at the Southern end. There are not many houses on the lake. Maybe 10% of the shoreline has houses on it.

Shallow rapids up stream of lake (hard to see in this picture)

Looking South

Looking up stream from boat launch

Biking near Thompson Point:

Killington and Pico

I have never been up Pico before. I decided to hike on the Long Trail South from Rt 4. Up Killington and then up Pico on the way back. Other than some steep up near the top of both mountains the trail is relatively easy and stays up on a ridge for most of the way. Roughly 15 miles round trip. I stayed on the LT although you can go up the old LT (prior to 1999) to Pico which is shorter by about a mile each way. Killington was open for skiing on this day. One trail which you can see in some of the pictures.

Looking at Pico from Killington

One trail open at Killington

Texas Falls on the way back (rt 100):

Converse Bay Kayak

Another nice calm day on the main lake. Stopped off at gardener island and kayaked out around Thompson point from converse bay boat ramp. Saw two other boats during the day. Lake isn't exactly crowded!

House on Gardener island

And a few from Camels Hump: