photography / hiking | mmckennedy | Sept 2009
Last night I hiked Vermont’s Camel’s Hump mountain via the 2.4 mile long Burrows Trail accompanied by a full moon and my camera. Slept on the rocks in my sleeping bag to wake to one amazing sunrise.
I met a friend of mine at the Burrows Trail parking area in Huntington (at Camel’s Hump State Park off of Camel’s Hump road) at about 6:20pm. We set out on the trail with every intention of making it to the summit by 7:15 to catch sunset. We must have passed thirty other hikers coming down as we hiked the well defined and maintained trail. We took our time (probably because our backpacks were heavy and we were feeling it) and arrived at Vermont’s 3rd highest undeveloped peak sometime around 7:45pm.
About forty-five minutes later I send a text message to the third member of our group. It read, ‘close?’ – he relied, ‘Yup’. (Yes, there is great mobile connectivity, starts around have way up the trail.) I then told him that we are on the South East side down in a crevice trying to avoid the bone-chilling winds. He arrived a few minutes later. All three of us stood in awe as the moon looped full above our heads.
We were not alone at the summit. People trickled in and out up until the last of them left at 1:15am (a group of what sounded like college kids were up there being very loud – they kept me up for an extra hour) . The three of us slept upon the rocks (very careful to not disturb the fragile mountain vegetation) in our sleeping bags under a moon that illuminated the entire ten acres as if it were day.
I woke at 5:00am, grabbed my camera, put on an extra layer of clothes and headed back up to the peak. The pinks were starting to show over New York and Lake Champlain. The next hour and a half was spent gazing out as the sun poked out from the land displaying an amazing spectrum of colour.
Here are some of the photographs from this hiking trip.
For more information about hiking the Burrows Trail to Camel’s Hump summit view this blog post.
Full Moon From Camels Hump (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump At Night (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Waking View (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Clouds (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Clouds (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Camel's Hump Sunrise (click for larger view)
Take a look at more photographs from Camels Hump here.
