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.

Note: the photos and text from this post are almost entirely Greg’s writing, with some guest photos and writing from his supportive friends.

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 . . .

June 18th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 13

6:00am

Tomorrow, crossing at Hudson Falls. Today headed for Glens Falls.

Question: Is this feeling like something of a pilgrimage? 

Greg: A pilgrimage in a way, but there’s that part where most modern pilgrimages are done with a large cohort. This feels pretty lonely at times.

Morning Walk

I got a lane of US-9 all to myself for a mile or two. The construction workers saw how I had no shoulder where I was walking (because they had routed the one lane traffic there) but invited me to switch sides to where they had finished grinding up pavement. 

One wonders: what do they do with all the ground up stuff they cart away by the truckload? Can they reuse it somehow? 

I also talked to the folks who were painting numbers on the highway every hundred feet. Surprisingly good “handwriting” for waving around a paint can on a three-foot long stick.

I don’t have a photo of the butterfly (tiger swallowtail?) that walked onto my finger from where it was lying – looking injured – on the sidewalk, and then promptly took off and flew off over the trees. However I do have this, which makes me wonder who invented wings first.

I arrived at my destination too early. The motel where I optimistically reserved two days in advance (look at me being an optimist for once!) does not take check-ins until 15:00 (three o’clock); I’m only twenty minutes away and it’s only 13:35 (one-thirty-five). Thus, I’m having a late lunch at a Stewart’s.

How interesting. This is the first time since I started walking that I’ve wound up in a place with screens – lots and lots of screens, it’s a sports bar – and my attentional focus has shifted enough already that they’re not grabbing my attention like the canonical “squirrel” the way they normally do.

6:26pm

It’s ironic that I’m getting leftovers when I also have a free breakfast at my motel. I was very surprised/pleased with the Landmark Motor Inn: they have very nice rooms, a common area that includes real art and photos of famous race horses, a pool table, leaded glass chandeliers in the dining area. It’s laid out and priced like a motel but offers the amenities of a much ritzier hotel.

June 19th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 14

9:47am

It’s not even 10am and the heat has me wondering if this is viable. And it’s getting hotter after tomorrow . . .

Today I crossed the Hudson River and met up with the Champlain Canal. Walked on another canal trail, although this section of it was mostly a dirt road. 

I stopped at a lovely garden center where I removed my long sleeves because I was overheating (before 10am) and slathered on SPF50. Catalpas seem popular around here. I crossed to the other side of the tracks (to get to Hudson Falls). I think I got my first view of the Green Mountains? There was a lovely yard that looked like a park along the trail; it had no “Posted” signs but I decided not to sit under the apple trees even though it was tempting. Finally I arrived at Champlain lock C-9 and it was just as inviting. Staying here(ish) tonight.

[While Greg wore SPF 50 sunscreen, his very fair complexion combined with a T-shirt to result in vivid-red arms.]

Something I never knew or thought about with canals – they don’t necessarily follow the rules we might assume with respect to rivers. It happens I’m at the high point in the middle of this canal; it’s downhill both ways from here even though they use the term “downstream” to mean towards Hudson Bay. . . . Something I didn’t know about tug boats – some of them can duck their heads to go under low bridges or locks.

June 20th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 15

This morning began with overcast skies and gusty winds. I walked through very sparsely populated places. For the first time on this journey I’ve had this weird sense of walking through a world where the humans were just mysteriously gone. Swing-sets swinging in the wind with no humans to appreciate them – that kind of thing.

Some stunning trees, skies and mountains. It’s hard to give a sense of how big these trees were but I think it would take 2-3 people linked up to reach around the base.

Not all of the old barns are crumbling. Some people are rebuilding them and keeping them running. I’m a big fan of this, apparently so are the barns.

I had largely forgotten growing up with lots of wild chamomile (aka pineapple weed) in the lawn. Here, getting closer to that bioregion, it is beginning to show up as a roadside “weed”.

I stopped for lunch at a place called Hicks which was a U-pick orchard but also a cider house. I felt more welcome than usual for pictured reasons. They had ciders made with black currant, Montmorency cherries, and “ice cider”. And they ship so I might be tempted to get some in the future.  🍾🥂

Finally I landed at my new friend Dakota’s place to camp for the night. But then he took me along to dinner hosted by Phil who raises cows but also who (with Dakota and many others) helped launch EcoGather in 2020. It was definitely “trail magic.”

June 21st 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 16

I was able to make more than half of my day’s journey (I believe) on the Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail. First I had to cross into Vermont (the tell, it turns out, is where the pavement changes – GPS confirmed that – there is no sign ☹️); then get to Poultney, home of the former Green Mountain College. From there the rail trail took me all the way to Castleton, home of (hopefully) present Vermont State University campus.

Fungi I can’t ID but that looked super cool.

Wild strawberries. 🍓 Ripe, and gleaned . . . All told my wild harvesting so far includes: thyme, chamomile, strawberry, and mint. I could have had asparagus, but it was growing by a cemetery so that seemed rude somehow.

June 22nd 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 17

I arrived in Brandon and was greeted by a young man who had biked past me on the way to town, and found out that there is a town picnic happening today with live music, next to the waterfall. So it seemed like a great time to stop for lunch!

I stayed at the picnic for quite a while because I know the hotel check in time wasn’t until 15:00. I enjoyed listening to Patrick Fitzsimmons and then when he paused between sets got into one of those beautiful serendipitous conversations with Robert Black, an intentional communities architect and also an anthroposophical art teacher. He knew parts of the history of Ecovillage at Ithaca that I’d never even heard, and we talked about things like his philosophy professor friend who had the first two weeks of his class as a section hike of the Appalachian Trail, from which he felt philosophy could be taught in a more grounded way.

It’s easy to understand how this part of the country became known for stone and stone quarries. Even the gravel people use in their driveways is more colorful here.

I got to cross my first covered bridge, and then a much more modern but still scenic bridge over the railroad. This led me into some of the historic buildings of Brandon.

 I settled in to the Brandon Motor Lodge to wait out a couple of days of dangerous heat — the kind you’re not supposed to exert yourself in. I found myself stopping at a substantial organic farm-stand just down the road and finally got myself some June strawberries. Another small coincidence: the fellow who sold them to me is the son of the people who run the Lodge. 😸🍓

June 23rd 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 18

Good morning from Brandon VT! Some of you know I have a habit of tracking my time. I realized this morning that I could not find a category for “I have no agenda and I’m not spending time with anybody or doing something productive or distracting.” It is possible that this “enforced” rest is actually here to teach me a lesson about how I look at time.

June 24th 2025

Vermont Walk: Day 19

I have no interesting new updates while I wait out the heat, so here’s a little recap.

In my first week I hiked from Danby to Ilion on the Erie Canal, staying in fields, forests, a motel and a marina. I saw antique cars, the rectangular cows from Far Side cartoons, sculpture gardens, guard geese, and lots of architecture. I ate in diners or other cute local places, when I wasn’t fighting the chipmunks over my trail mix. I saw historical machines, historical markers, and far more “no trespassing” signs than I ever imagined. And open skies and panoramic vistas.

In my second week I made it to Granville NY just on the border with Vermont. I took advantage of the beautiful canal trail, saw the vibrant smallest city of Little Falls and the largest lock of the canal system, and the architecture and history of Gloversville and Broadalbin. I lucked into diner feasts and cider tastings. I found a pedestrian detour that saved me miles, and Google’s mistaken notion of a “walkable road”. I walked through just enough rain to stay cool, and too much sun.

I also appreciated (and occasionally ate) the flora, and the fauna. I saw people appreciating and taking care of old things. And I made new friends.

4:55pm

The plan is made now, I set out for Rochester VT tomorrow . . . Come hail or high mercury . . . 😹

[Not yet finished.]