Mount Horrid Not Horrid for Journalists!

Mount Horrid has hardly been horrid for journalists. They have mined this hike, helping it become the famous 6/10ths of a mile Long Trail hike it is today, where there is a parking lot often with a half dozen or more cars. There have been a few articles in the New York Times beginning in the 1920s, and it was the subject of an article in Time magazine in 1973.

Time Magazine Article 1973

Luxury campsites! The very phrase is a non sequitur. As any Boy Scout knows, a campsite is a clearing in the woods where the greatest luxury is a running brook. The basic urge of the true camper is to escape from chlorine, color TV and asphalt. The climb up Mount Horrid is an excellent baptism. In six-tenths of a mile, the trail rises sharply 600 ft. We were out of breath halfway up, and I thought my heart was about to pound out of my chest. At 2,800 ft., the trail levels off on a rocky perch called Mount Horrid Cliff. The rock wall drops straight down 500 ft. When the sky cleared, we could see the Adirondacks 50 miles to the west and New Hampshire 40 miles to the east.

The view would have been splendid even through a car window, but it was far more satisfying because of the struggle up the mountain. In an electric-toothbrush civilization, it’s nice to know that your muscles still work. When you sit down to rest and look at your backpack, you realize that everything you need for survival is right there. In the last few years, of course, some of the hardiness has been extracted even from backpacking. The awkward canvas knapsack has given way to nylon and aluminum contraptions. Miniature propane stoves and freeze-dried foods—from stroganoff to strawberry ice cream—can never be as romantic as honest campfires, canned beans and coffee you brew yourself.

July 2, 1973


For whole article, click here.

New York Times articles about Mount Horrid: One of Many

Vermont Peaks Invite Climbing; Mount Horrid Is One That Can Be Sealed Easily and Yet It Offers a Wide View

Special to The New York Times FRED COPELAND.

July 12, 1942, Sunday

Section: TRAVEL RECREATION, Page XX9, 669 words

BRANDON, Vt. — In the same range as the Washingtons, Mansfields and Whitefaces of the East, with their motor car roads to the summit, there are less lofty mountains with foot paths much more interesting because of their own unique formation and their more picturesque surroundings

Mount Horrid Spring, 2010

The Great Cliffs of Mount Horrid, March 10, 2010.

   "Five thousand years ago, the trail that Vermonters now call a 'footpath in the wilderness,' cut through mountian woods along a stream in southern Vermont. The native people who hiked this path were not seeking a wilderness experience. They were walking to work," writes Sally Pollack in the Burlington Free Press July 29, 1996.
   "The landscape is a continuum of use and then we put the Long Trail in and say it's a footpath in the wilderness," says US Forest Service archaeologist David Lacy. "It's a footpath through regrowth. It's just an absolute storm of change if you look at it over a  any period of time."