Miles: 14.5; Elevation gained: 4,350

I thought this elevation gained was pretty robust and I looked back through the hike to find this was our biggest climbing day on the entire trail. More than Abraham, Camel’s, Killington, Bolton, or Mansfield. Why? How? Well, 2,100 feet of this was Belvedere Mtn alone, and even that peak, at 3,360 ft, fails to make the top 10. There were a series of 2,000 ft bumps like the Bowens (N & S), Butternut, and various unnamed knolls, but I think the answer lies in how much we traveled down in between these. OK, so it’s not the most stunning revelation – point is this section was a haul, and tested us dawn to dusk.

As soon as we broke camp at Corliss, we climbed 900 ft to Butternut, which is where I snapped the photo below of the spider web (and you thought you worked hard!). This was one of those zero payback summits in terms of a view, but I will concede there were indeedy many butternut trees. Which is nice.

The excitement started soon on the descent. Two guys we had camped with at Corliss passed us on the summit, and when they were probably 500 yards ahead, we heard a lot of yelling. I assumed they were sending a bear away, so I kept a wary eye out as I headed down. Soon after I went through a little, sunny clearing with waste high ferns, I heard Cliff yell out behind me. Can you guess? Yellow jackets! He had been stung up on the thigh a couple of times – big red, warm blotches. First time he’s been stung so he was pretty taken aback by the attack. I was wearing pants which I guess spared me. We caught up to the two guys, who were also a pants/shorts duo, and the latter had gotten it 6-7 times. But wait, there’s more. When we arrived at Tillotson in the evening, we ran into another father and son team who had been at Corliss. The dad had been stung some 20 times, and almost passed out. An ambulance came to meet them at Eden crossing, gave him hydration and antihistamines which I guess rendered him well enough to continue (still kicked our butts). Wonder what those wasps were so ticked off at? In any case, whenever we’d meet sobo hikers, I’d start to say “hey watch out going up Butternut…” and I’d get cut off by “yeah yeah, we know – the bees. Thanks.” Cliff, as befits a teen, was like “umm, Dad, I think you can stop mentioning that from now on.” I never have any fun.

As I mentioned, Belvedere was a healthy 2,100 ft from the road. The LT does not summit – you have the option of heading up another 0.2 mi, which we of course did even though it was late afternoon. Easily in top 5 views on the trail – there is a fire tower that is almost gratuitous because it’s already a stunning 200 or so degree scope, but the tower makes it 360, there is a cool wind at the top, we see way up into Canada, and life doesn’t really get any better!

Which means it was all downhill from there… There is one huge difference between the south and north sides of Belvedere: the south approach is a popular day hike up from Eden Road, and looks like an interstate compared to the north side. There the vegetation is extremely thick, and there are so few hikers that pass through that you are continually fighting through it as it presses in on the trail from both sides. Feels like a prickly, annoying car wash. Definitely a place for wireless earbuds, as mine got ripped from my head enough times that I had to just put them away.

The rest of the march to Tillotson was one of those WTFITS stretches (likely you know the first three – the “ITS” stands for “is the shelter?”). When we arrived the sun was just above the horizon, the camp cabin was full, as were all the decent tent sites. When I say the cabin was full, I must pointlessly complain in futile hindsight that each 2-person bunk was occupied by one person. Someone graciously said we could find spots on the floor, but I declined. I swear by the hiking gods that next time I will tell two to bunk up properly, but yeah, well…  So set up my new, hi tech, light weight Big Agnes tent on some rocks next to the fire pit and we had a fairly long, fitful night. Ahhh, backpacking…