Mendon Peak

Mendon Peak is located just west of Killington and a couple miles south of Pico.  It rises enough to be one of New England's One Hundred Highest.  Mendon also happens to be the most prominent peak as viewed from Rutland.

When I was in college, my roomate would always say, "there aren't many on campus that have this view."  We could see Mohonk from our window.  I would love to sit at my desk and gaze out at the stone tower that sits a top.  Until today, it was the only mountain that I climbed that I could view from my window.  Just like then, I enjoy looking out my window at the mountains.

Looking out my window

Although I love the Adirondacks (they happen to be my favorite place in the world), they have never captured a real sense of adventure like I had when I was working on the Catskill 3500 Club peaks.  While starting out this morning, I had this sense of newness.  This sense that I was entering an unknown wilderness.  Though Mendon is trailless, there are many logging roads in the area.  I brought my compass and map and I wrote down some accounts from Peakbagger.  This would ultimately prove to be enough.

It was not easy.  I followed the Catamount Trail for about a half mile before following the logging roads.  I passed a logging camp and crossed a few brooks and picked the correct forks.  Once on the mountain, the logging roads petered out.  Fortunately, the woods were quite open.  Unfortunately, the 3 to 4 inches of crusty snow rested on top of 2 feet of snow.  When the slopes became quite steep, I did not stay on top of the snow.  I fell in above my knees.  It was not easy getting out.  More than once, I crawled out.

Logging road

Tough stuff!

At this point, the going was extremely, extremely slow.  It would take me a minute to just go 10 feet.  I started to think, "this is stupid.  It's time to throw in the towel."  Still, it was early, so I also thought, "What's the point?  I might as well rough it like this for a few hours, then turn around."

This would turn out to be a great decision.  Though it was still impossibly difficult at times, the layer of crust got thicker the higher I ascended.  Eventually, my effort led me to a somewhat broken in herd path.  This made life comparatively easy.  Mendon has a false summit (its east peak) and the herd path led straight to the col, avoiding a lot of thick spruce and fir.

After barreling my way through some thick evergreen forest on the summit, I reached the highest point.  The views from here were simply amazing.  Stratton to the south.  Killington and Little Killington to the east.  Pico to the north.  Bald Mountain and Rutland to the west.  Awesome views and totally unexpected.  At just over 3,800 feet, its summit with the small and windswept trees, had the feel of a mountain significantly higher.

Pico

Killington

Little Killington

Stratton

Bald Mountain

City of Rutland

Mt Marcy and the Adirondacks

The climb up took almost three hours.  The descent only took and hour and a half.  Snowshoeing is so much more fun going downhill!

I liked watching these little balls of snow that I kicked up while snowshoeing roll across the snow