Green Mountain Trails, Pittsfield, VT

2012 Summer Vermont Mountain Biking Extravaganza

Part I: The Green Mountain Trails, Pittsfield, VT

Trailhead Parking for the Green Mountain Trails

As our departure for the Stowe trip approached, we finagled our calendars to take off Friday as well so we could hit the Green Mountain Trails in Pittsfield on the way up.  The weekend weather looked iffy, but we set out with all the optimism we could muster.  Pittsfield is just north of Killington and boasts some fantastic stuff.  I'd been a couple of times to do the Vermont 666 race and adored the course, but had never made it up to hit it recreationally. We pulled into the lot in the early afternoon and chatted with one of the guys at Amee Farm, where the trailhead is located.

The Barn at Amee Farm

Gareau and I were pleasantly surprised to hear the trail conditions, despite some recent precipitation, we outstanding. We were also delighted to receive a handful of squash compliments of the farm.  He called the spiky ones, appropriately, Lisa Simpson squashes.

The Gift of Squash

We headed out to the trails after I'd forewarned BG that we'd be doing a significant amount of climbing right out of the gate.  The farm lies at 880' above sea level and the trails make their way up the side of a mountain to an elevation of 1820'.  Damn near a thousand feet of vertical.  As we came to the river crossing a little ways out from the farm, we were faced with a balancing act across an I-beam instead of the six foot wide bridge I was used to seeing, courtesy of Irene, which devastated Pittsfield a year ago.

After walking across we made our way up The Stairs to Noodles Revenge to Luvin' It (misnomer, by the way).  The nice thing about getting to the top in Pittsfield is that it is swictchbacky as all get-out.  At the top, we were greeted by a newly built, gorgeous stone hut that replaced an existing more dilapidated building.

Gareau has a thing for stone huts.

View from the summit.

The trail we didn't take.

We skipped Devils Throat, opting instead for Labyrinth, which is a super-gnarly, rooty, tight, twisty single track on top of the summit that led us down to Warman, which I would consider the signature trail of this system.  Warman is a series of 20 short switchbacks with high-sided berms that just scream down the mountain.  What a hoot!  Warman dumped us into Stonewall, which was just as fun.  The switchbacks are strung together with longer stretches of singletrack, much of which is benchcut  into the side of the mountain with sharp drops off down.    Here's BG getting a little Stonewall.

As we hit the bottom of Stonewall, we did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to schlep up Luvin' It one more time.  Double Luvin'.  BG, mostly because he's a prick, pulled away from me like I was a cootie-infested third grade girl.  Looking back, I'm able to forgive him.  That's how big I am.

As we hit the top there was a dialogue about the route.  I was pushing for Devils Throat.  It just sounds awesome.   Who doesn't want to be ingested by Beelzebub?  Gareau threw some logic into the equation though. This was day one of a three day mountain biking trip and maybe plunging ourselves down Mephistopheles' pie hole wasn't the smartest plan.  Plus Gareau promised April he wouldn't die before the wedding.

So we hit Zebedee instead.  That's the blue intermediate trail that somehow is 100 times longer than Labyrinth, which goes to pretty much the same place.  Lots of fun and totally worth the second trip up to the peak.  We did Stonewall again and then climbed Luvin' It again.  A third time.  Triple Luvin'.  You know, menage a trois.  It'd probably sound hotter if it weren't just Gareau and I.

We only climbed partway up Luvin' It this time before catching the Fusters Connector.  Guess where that took us?  If you guessed Fusters, you're right.  If you didn't guess Fusters, don't worry.  You can read this blog entry again and guess Fusters next time.

Fusters is one of the trails that I've heard about at the two races I've been to, but which the races don't hit.   It's also the only black diamond trail we hit all day.  Labeled as 3.3 miles and losing 760' of elevation, this one was a ton of fun.  There were definitely some fast entrances into hairpin turns that I wasn't sure I'd make, but somehow I eked all of them out.  I would definitely recommend anyone coming here make this part of your route.  So worth it.

Off Fusters we caught The Stairs again and switchbacked our way back to the bottom.

A great day one of this three days of mountain biking.  16.9 miles and no appreciable rain.  Plus we made it back in plenty of time to finish the trip up to Stowe and set up camp in preparation for day two.  More on that to follow.

Between Luvin' It and the summit.