Greg's Walk to Vermont

 The first step in taking an epic trip is preparation. In my travel preparations I often begin the process weeks or even months in advance. Admittedly, the reason I need to do this is because I prepare all of my own food (and face severe consequences when I attempt to cheat). For virtually anybody who isn’t me, this degree of preparation only becomes relevant when planning something much more challenging – something I personally have decided not to attempt – an epic trip on foot.

We’ve (probably) all heard of the Appalachian trail (even if you have no idea where it is), but Greg felt that doing this trail wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as trail-blazing – embarking on a footpath that, in all probability, has never done before. After all, why would someone decide to walk from central New York State (Ithaca) all the way to Vermont?

Greg’s idea to walk all the way to Vermont began as a glitch. He was looking up the route to some friends. He expected driving directions, but instead was given walking directions – for a walk which would take the better part of a month. His personal reaction to this was, “Wait, 120 hours is three conventional work weeks, that’s . . . doable!” 😂

In this post I will include the highlights of Greg’s photos and musings from his journey.

Greg writes —

June 1st 2025

Vermont Walk: Begins in 7 Days

I built a script to analyze the GPS data out of the mesh radio and compute my walking speed. This graph shows speed with a moving average (to remove some glitchyness) and the altitude. I seem to average about 2.5mph on roads and about 1.4mph on trails. And on the trails my speed drops when the slope gets steep (unsurprisingly).

June 4th 2025

Vermont Walk: Begins in 3 Days

The news for today is I got a brief chance to try out my new, smaller, lighter pack. I went with what is nominally considered a “daypack” (REI Trail 40) which is 2.75lbs versus the 4.5lbs my previous pack weighed. 

Although someone must have changed the definition of liters, because the heavy pack (nominally 46L) was only about half full, but there isn’t quite room for everything in the 40L pack so I’m outrigging (is that an appropriate analogy) a little more.

June 5th 2025

Vermont Walk: Begins in 2 Days

I took a quick look at the details of the Abbot Loop trail I tried last Sunday, and the fact that it included +/- 1500ft elevation and grades up to 44% makes me feel a bit reassured that the Green Mountains of VT won’t do me in.

June 7th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 1

9:45am — The walk begins!

First stop is lunch at Dolce Delight. How can I resist a sandwich called The Odyssey?

The three coolest things that I saw today, I did not get pictures of: a turtle crossing the road, who I encouraged to finish the journey so a car wouldn’t; an actual dovecote where I saw the birds flying between two buildings through a screen hallway; and a large black pick up truck delivering multiple bookcase-sized geodes to the Zen monastery!

June 8th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 2

5:28am

I find myself in the weird position of being wide awake (this happens when one goes to sleep at sunset) and realizing that if I leave now, even the five-hour walk will get me there hours before “check-in time.” Such a weirdly mechanical era we live in where the innkeepers of the world don’t want you to have lunch and a house ale to make a few extra coins.

~

I started the day with a road that turned into what I soon recognized was a rail trail. A little clearing led to a bog with lovely birdsong. Then I encountered birds and other creatures as sculptures.

Reached my first county line, and the historic downtown of Cortland.

3:01pm

I’m amazed how much difference hiking poles have made. Not just better balance, but with my arms engaged I’m not getting sausage fingers like I did when they just hung by my sides all day.

I’ve been running a highly informal experiment in pro-sociality: how many drivers will wave back to a random hiker who waves at them from the roadside?

Results are organized primarily by vehicle type.

Most likely: Prius or small import sedans and hatchbacks. Extra likely if it has a bicycle on the back.

Least likely: Jeeps, and any vehicle with more or larger tires than it was born with. Also Audis and anything with a black and white paint job or an oversized spoiler. Or a horse trailer. Or if the driver is wearing wraparound chromatic reflective sunglasses.

Surprise result: Commercial vehicles, up to and including dump trucks and tractor trailers – much more likely to wave than most.

June 9th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 3

12:12pm

I guess I must be getting my legs under me, because after walking ten miles and reaching what would’ve been my stop for the day before noon, I decided that I really didn’t wanna stop all the weather was as pleasant. I guess my stops are going to be somewhat adjusted, TBD.

I was concerned to learn that gardening needs a memorial . . .

. . . but pleased to see guard geese on duty . . .

. . . and formal warning given for their diverse flocking habits.

June 10th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 4

I took the high road, but not the one labeled “High Br. Road” oddly. Then I had the song stuck in my head for much of the rest of the walk.

June 11th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 5

Does your log cabin have a log cabin for a mailbox?

My least favorite terrain is a left hand turn going up a hill. For anyone who is in the habit of using the shoulder to “smooth out the turn” think about how this looks from my perspective . . .

As much as I feel like I should refrain from crude humor, this antique shop had to be the butt of some kind of joke.

June 12th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 6

I think I’m at about a hundred miles now, but I don’t have an odometer built in.

Random observation: this thing called “Vitamin Water” must be really unhealthy because apparently you have one or even a part of one, it makes you so weak that you drop it by the roadside. 

Seriously, I have seen far more of these than any other roadside trash. It hurts my soul a little that I can’t just clean up all the junk I see, but I’d need a second backpack.

Today I particularly liked seeing nature reclaiming its own – milkweed literally pushing a hole through the asphalt.

I found myself asking a surprising question tonight: am I on vacation/holiday or is this a “job”?

June 13th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 7

Sometimes there’s just a view in every direction. Sometimes there’s a place named Cedar Creek which actually has cedars, by a creek. And sometimes there are just aspen groves which never got called out.

3:26pm

Arrived at Ilion Marina. Walked basically straight through for seven hours with just brief stops for a toe band-aid and the nice volunteer firefighter Mark who gave me cold water.

To be honest, my feet feel bruised . . . but it is beautiful here, and the day was not too hot, and I had several friendly exchanges so I think it was a good one. 

First week ✅

Overall you could say it was a day of ups and downs.

June 13th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 8

So today was a lot of this. [A paved path through nature scenes along a waterway.]

And then more noteworthy bits like a divided highway for pedestrians and bicyclists . . .

. . . a path that managed to be almost perfectly half wet and half dry . . . 

. . . and the kind of signpost you normally only see in cartoons . . .

The city of Little Falls (the smallest city in NY) was a surprise gem. Formerly the center of cheese production in the entire US,  now a seemingly lively artsy tourist destination. Stunning architecture between old factories and beautiful old houses and churches. They turned one four story factory into a multi use community center with everything from food to art galleries to inn rooms. And the highest lock on the Erie Canal is here as well at over 40’.

. . . Bridges that have been decommissioned, and ones that maybe should be [Below] . . . It is disconcerting when the wood that is holding you up feels squishy.

June 14th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 9

Today started with trains, then streams, fields, woods, walls, birches, a very highly appreciated pedestrian bridge that saved me a multi-mile detour, the best lilac of the week, and a disagreement between google and reality about the road-ness of my route.

Finally landed in Peck Hill State Forest for a long, long rest. Filled with the sounds of animals walking through the woods . . . all night long . . .

June 15th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 10

Diner humor.

Diner food.

Farmer humor.

Farmer food (A2 organic!) One of the yogurts our household buys, tracked to the source.

Dairy humor. 

Ranger humor, lack thereof.

Safe at last, in the land of purple tree paint.

June 16th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 11

I have arrived at Pop’s Lake Campground. It is very lovely and peaceful here. The pine needles are so deep you sink an inch walking on them

June 17th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 12

Question: I’m curious, do you wake up some days and think: But I don’t want to walk for 7 hours!!!!

Greg: You know, it’s rarely an issue in the mornings. At two in the afternoon when the sun is beating down and I feel like a melted popsicle is usually when I start to have that feeling.

Question: And also, how is your body feeling?

Greg: Mostly fine. Sometimes my hips hurt. The blisters on my feet are surprisingly, not painful, probably because I’ve been covering them as directed.

9:21am

For the second time, Google tried to send me down a dead end road. I think I learned my lesson from the first one and decided to avoid slogging through unknown amounts of bog and private property.

4:55pm

Well I have been drizzled on all day and am now surrounded by roughly one billion mosquitoes waiting for me to come out of the tent so they can eat me alive, but . . . I just reached the halfway point!

I have completed the first 11 out of 22 (planned) days, and by drive time I am now closer to my destination than to home.

I’ve been thinking of this in terms of a roughly 20x slowdown compared to a car. A day -> 20 days, 20 minutes -> 7 hours.

An epic, rubble-filled dry-stone wall. Someone knew what they were doing building this one . . .