Appalachian Trail Review: Section 2 – New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut

This is the second post in my Appalachian Trail review series, covering New Hamshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The total distance of this section is about 453 miles, which includes the White Mountains, and the southern half of Vermont’s Long Trail.

Here is a map of the section. The maps in this series are a bit outdated, as the trail makes slight changes every year, and I couldn’t find data from 2024. The red markers represent the state lines, the purple marker is AMC’s Mizpah Spring Hut, the orange marker is AMC’s Galehead Hut, and the blue marker is AMC’s Lonesome Lake Hut. The green marker is Stone’s Throw Farmstead, the yellow marker is the town of Dalton, and the brown marker is the town of Kent.

Apologies in advance for the obscene number of pictures.

New Hampshire

The end of Maine and beginning of New Hampshire consisted of climbing over giant boulders and slamming my legs on them in the process. Still very beautiful.

Views from the beginning of the White Mountains. There are lots of restrictions on where you can camp. I ran into a bunch of college orientation groups, and luckily the Harvard group let me camp on their group site the first night.

So many different ways to go…

Made it up Mount Washington! Thankfully there was a cafeteria and gift shop on the summit so I could get a hot chocolate and post cards.

In the White Mountains, there are shelters called AMC Huts where you can pay for a meal and bed after a long day of hiking. A few lucky Appalachian Trail hikers are allowed to sleep on the floor and get food in exchange for a little bit of work each night. Since I was going southbound, I had excellent luck of getting there before other hikers. In fact, I was usually the only one. This is the Mizpah Spring Hut.

This is the Galehead Hut, which was my favorite.

The Lonesome Lake Hut was also very nice. They were having an end of season party the night I stayed there and played card games far too late.

I love fire towers.

The Appalachian Trail goes right through Hanover, New Hampshire!

My friend Sophie picked me up in Hanover and we made corn beans (cowboy caviar). It was awesome being able to sleep in a bed and be around people I know! We also got a lesson about investing from her neighbor. I’ve decided to go all in on GameStop. The next day she dropped me off back in Hanover and I stopped at Lou’s to get a free hiker donut.

Vermont

Before leaving the Hanover/Norwich area I had to make two very important stops – King Arthur’s Flour and Dan & Whit’s.

Delicious mac and cheese mmmmm.

Vermont ended up being my second favorite state on the trail. This was probably because of all the apple trees! Free snacks everywhere.

I came across a farm work for stay at Stone’s Throw Farmstead and had a great time helping them prepare for the farmers market that weekend.

The trail follows the southern half of Vermont’s Long Trail. It suddenly became much more crowded until the Massachusetts state line.

Massachusetts

This white house with the fog is exactly how I picture the hotel in Roald Dahl’s short story, “The Landlady”.

Allie’s parents and dog, Cisco, picked me up (from a very sketchy motel I will say) and took me out to dinner! It was super nice to see some more familiar faces, especially after not seeing a single other hiker in Massachusetts so far. They also took me to the grocery store and got me some food. Allie’s Uncle who lives in Dalton drove me back to the trail in the morning as well!

I said hello to the Mass Pike and came across a lovely public cabin on the water for hikers (that wasn’t on my map. mysterious.) A very drunk couple that had just gotten engaged boated over to me, gave me pretzels and wine, and then crashed their boat. They were ok.

Bag of (non-poisonous) apples!

The cows were all over the trail in southern Massachusetts.

Connecticut

Connecticut was extremely lovely. A large portion of the trail follows the Housatonic River and was completely flat. I also saw my first bear! I sent a video of it to my family without any context and then lost service, so they thought I was eaten.

My Connecticut relatives met me in Kent, and we had an early dinner.

I really enjoyed these states, especially Vermont. Late summer/early fall is one of my favorite times of the year and it was nice to have the trail basically to myself.