As you’re walking/hiking/climbing your way from the parking lot near the top of Mount Ascutney to the actual top of Mount Ascutney, you have the option (assuming you’re a masochistic, delusionsal fool who has conveniently forgotten that you’re 68 years old and you sit at a desk all day) of going off on about a 0.2 mile side trail pretty much straight up to get to Castle Rock. I couldn’t recall ever having gone that route in the past, and they had a BOGO special on delusional that day, so off I went.
It’s not so much extra climbing and altitude gain as it is going the hard and steep way just to see a big rock with a view. I had a good time and apparently lived.
You’re probably still 100 feet or so below the summit and off to the side, but the views are nice as you pop out of the side of the heavily forested mountain and can see for quite a ways.
Sitting on Castle Rock and looking back in, there are a great many trees that look like this. The Vermont winters can be brutal, cold, icy, and windy, and the first rank of trees next to the rock are fully exposed to those elements. They’re doing their best, but they regularly get the shit kicked out of them. Yet all of them still had some fresh, green spring growth somewhere. They weren’t dead and they weren’t giving up.
And when I slipped and almost fell off of the freakin’ rock, they were there for me to grab onto.
These trees are my favorites. We are kindred spirits.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 