You Are Here: Woodland Trail/Vistamont Trail

I had hyped this hike up in my head to be rather difficult. A lot of it was unknown. Woodland Trail is often described as very rustic, wet and hard to follow in places.. I wasn't as concerned about Vistamont Trail as I think that's a little more traveled/maintained, it was Woodland Trail I was more concerned about. I started on Clark Trail and headed up to the Woodland Trail intersection. Temperatures were perfect today and initially bugs weren't too bad. Once at the intersection, stay straight onto Woodland Trail. It was very overgrown in places, but the path itself wasn't too difficult to follow. I knew about the abandoned caravan along the trail, so when I reached it, while it was definitely somewhat unnerving to pass so closely to, I wasn't too worried about it. The first half of the trail was seemingly on an old road and the worst of it was definitely the mud in places. I think I lucked out though as we've had some really hot, and somewhat dry weather, so it wasn't terrible. Annoying, but not terrible. I reached a point where you crossed a small brook, and the trail took a sharp left. This was really the only place I fully relied on the track I had downloaded to figure out where to go, otherwise navigation wasn't as bad as I had expected. The blazes are definitely very faded in spots and the trail is very lightly, if at all maintained.. but I found the path was mostly discernible, and in the areas where it was very overgrown, it seemed to luck out that the blazes were visible. The trail relatively gently climbs for just over 2 miles popping out on Skyland Trail just below the summit of Church Mountain. Here I turned right and followed Skyland Trail in the reverse direction than I had previously done it, climbing up and down over Grafton Knob, Crane Mountain and a couple of unnamed knobs until just below the summit of Gilman Mountain (or Orange Mountain as I've seen it called both). Skyland Trail has some really stunning viewpoints over to Cardigan Mountain and the surrounding areas. I like it much more than actual Cardigan Mountain because it's not so commonly traveled and you get much of the same view without the crowds. The ups and downs to the summits of each of the peaks you pass over are somewhat steep in places and the peaks get higher as you go in this direction, but it's really a lovely trail, one of the best hidden gems in all the Southern AMC Trail Guide I think. My downfall today was I developed a really bad blister on my left heel, which made it really painful to walk and took away from the beauty of the day unfortunately. My toes also got so smushed for some reason so my feet from one end to the other were in horrific pain. I spent most of the hike just wanting to be done and take my boots off. I'm disappointed because this hike really is a great one. I didn't do anything extra on the hike today, so I didn't go up to the actual summit of Gilman Mountain, having been there before a couple years ago. The views from the start of Vistamont Trail though are completely stunning, so not going to the actual summit was no great loss. Vistamont Trail from here is a really steep descent for just under a mile. Much steeper than I had anticipated. There are quite a lot of switchbacks in places which helped, but it was a pretty relentless down. Starts off with amazing views, then heads back into the woods and just goes down and down and down. About a quarter mile before the Clark Trail intersection, you hit the low point on the trail and climb a little back up. Once on Clark Trail, it's a mostly gentle descent all the way back. While the temperatures and breeze were amazing the entire day, as it warmed up the bugs came out. I had to relent and put on the bug net part way down Vistamont Trail as they were beyond annoying and I was too tired to keep swatting them away. Aside from the painful feet, it was a great day and I was happy to check off 2 more trails on my spreadsheet. 17 left to go.

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