Camel's Hump via Forest City, Mt. Ethan Allen, Alli's, Burrows Trails (Camel's Hump State Park)

Camel's Hump via Forest City, Mt. Ethan Allen, Alli's, Burrows Trails (Camel's Hump State Park)

Hike Type: Lollipop Loop w/ Spur

Distance: 9.93 miles

Elevation: 3,586 feet

My Time: 7 hour, 29 minutes (6 hours, 7 minutes moving)

Book Time: 6 hours, 45 minutes

Parking: Parking for 5-6 cars at Forest City trailhead.
Hiking Challenges: Long Trail Side-to-Side, 52 Hike Challenge 2026, Operation Alaska Benchmark Challenge

The Hike 

I was officially out of car hell and into car purgatory! My CRV (after MUCH nagging) was FINALLY in the shop and I had a "rental" that was "covered by my warranty" (what happened to curtosey vehicles?!). They gave me an Accord as the rental, and I was EAGER to drive the heck out of it out of spite. It was Labor Day weekend, Emma and I were FINALLY planning to get our Jay-to-Canada hike in, and Sarah mentioned wanting to hike Camel's Hump - sold! I was up at 3:00am, snoozed until 3:30am, and was out the door at 4:00am, almost forgetting my shoes. It was a foggy morning in Boston and my drive was going to take a bit longer than usual because I could not go through tolls in the Accord.

I had to take the back entrance to Hooksett at 5:06am because of the afformentioned toll avoidance and got a nice christening in. They were playing Jolene over the loud speaker, RIP Dolly Parton! There were tragically no breakfast sandwiches, but thankfully there was a Dunkin Donuts five more minutes down the road in the direction I was driving. I later stopped at the Lebanon Walmart to grab a car phone charger becuase the wireless one that car had wasn't doing anything!

Sarah and I met at a bike trailhead on Cochran's Road a little before 8:00am - I didn't want to take the Accord on too many dirt roads. She scooped me up and we worked our way to the Forest City Trailhead, landing at 8:11am! It was a cloudy morning and 67 degrees out. We did our morning trailhead chores, and we were off!

[8:28am - Forest City Trail]

The Forest City Trail started by coinciding with the Catamount XC Ski Trail on a lovely, old road through a lush forest. We worked our way along the blue-blazed trail, eventually turning off of the road and crossing a relatively new-looking bridge. On the other side there were signs indicating that there is NO poop fairy to pick up your dog's poop, and some information about the Forest City Lumber Company:

"The Forest City Trail is named for the Forest City Lumber Company, which operated a sawmill here on Brush Brook during the 19th century. That era marked the peak of deforestation and agricultural activity with roughly 70% of the landscape cleared from 1830 to 1890. The eastern forest proved resilient and began regrowing as farms were abandoned. Today about 80% of VT is forested.

A couple minutes later we passed an old oven/furnace - I assume it was for the logging industry? Or Vermont's first backcountry pizza stop? A mystery!

The Forest City Trail followed the Brush Brook the whole time, and it was quite lovely! We eyed a possible swimming hole on the right early on after crossing the bridge, and later on at another bridge were were LOVELY falls and another possible swimming hole. Sarah LOVES a swimming hole, I love the idea of one but always want to be done when I'm at the end of a hike - we'll see what happens!

[8:50am - Forest City Trail/Burrows-Forest City Connector]

We hit the junction with the Burrows-Forest City Connector just after the waterfalls, and at some point the Catamount left, rejoined, and possibly left again? I couldn't keep up with it. We crossed a cute, small bridge and began to climb more moderately before easing up again. There was a lovely breeze most of the time with the occasional falling leaf (FALL IS COMING!). It was still cloudy overhead, which was a bummer, but if the summit is socked in at least it'll be on-par with last time I was up here!

The trail moderated again around 1.75 miles and it passed a nice little stand of ghost pipes. This has been an absolutely LOVELY trail!

[9:36am - Long Trail (south)]

[9:39am - Long Trail (south)/Montclair Glen Lodge]

We eventually hit the Long Trail, which was signed 200ft away from the Montclair Glen Lodge. The lodge was a cute cabin in a small clearing with a picnic table. We stopped here for a short break for a snack and pee - I was so scared and confused thinking the grey water pit (and it's strainer) was the privy... Nope! The privy was further in the woods. A person caught up to us wearing a UMass shirt (which was fun because UMass beat Rutgers last night, which was a SHOCK to everyone in my family that went to Rutgers, but not as much of a shock as it was to me, an alumnus of the UMass Marching Band who had watched that football team lose countless times) - we didn't chat much besides exchanging "hello"s to each other. Sarah and I then packed up and continued onward and upward!

[9:51am - Long Trail (south)]

As the Long Trail does, it climbed more ruggedly after the lodge, and passed some cool Catskill-esc rocks on the way up. We were debating whether or not if we wanted to go up Mt. Ethan Allen in addition to Camel's Hump, and said we'd decide for real once at the junction. The main pro was exploring more and the main con was more distance and elevation...

[9:58am - Long Trail (south)/Allis Trail]

Once at the junction with Allis Trail, we made the call to visit Mt. Ethan Allen! It was still cloudy, and Mt. Ethan Allen was supposed to have a view and was shorter than Camel's Hump, so maybe if we climbed it 1) we'd get a view and 2) give Camel's Hump more time to burn off the clouds? Only one way to find out! The trail was super pretty, first climbing through hardwoods and then a moss-lined coniferous forest. There were peeks of sun popping out and then trail eventually started to get slabby with moss on either sign.

The Long Trail soon plateau'd in an absolutely beautiful forest before climbing again past a little baby view and a massive blowdown. We hiked a steeper push to get up on the ridge, and soon we were at the summit sign and a viewpoint!

[10:33am - Mt. Ethan Allen, North Peak]

We had a NICE sit here. The view involved many rolling clouds at eye-level over the hills and mountains beyond - none of which were in my mental map. I had some summit pizza and we yapped about life, getting caught up since we hadn't seen each other since we hiked Saddleback! I heard about her backpacking trip to the Smokies and vacation to Japan and she heard about my Car Hell. I was saving the Florida family update for the climb up Camel's Hump - I figured that could help pass the time!

Eventually, the guy from the lodge joined us and we chatted about UMass and the Long Trail for a while - he's from California and just dropped his kid off at UMass. He wanted to hike the whole Long Trail, but the timing wasn't going to work out, so instead he's hiking from the Bolton Valley area to the Massachusetts Border. We eventually got chilly from the clouds and breeze, so we said our goodbyes and good lucks and were heading back on down!

[10:58am - Long Trail (north)] 

Our trip back down the Long Trail was pretty slow and overall delightful - we were both thrilled to have made this side trip! I didn't make a note of this, and I'm admittedly writing this entry quite a few weeks later, so I do not have a memory of this, BUT my photos seem to heavily suggest that either I or Sarah took a spill on the way down... I'm going to assume it was Sarah!

[11:32am - Allis Trail]

Just to keep the adventure going (and to knock another trail off my Side-to-Side list), we took Allis Trail as a little detour around the lodge, and let me just say, it was an absolute DELIGHT. It was clear it is seldom traveled, but it was easy to follow with a soft, kind footway the whole time. It rose to a height of land surrounded by moss and ferns the whole way. At the height-of-land there was a sign that read:

"In memory of David Morse 1914-1999

May all who pass this way be inspired to love this land as he did.

Sept. 2000 Montpelier Section GMC"

Just after the sign we caught a couple peek-a-views to a low shoulder of Camels Hump and just after a view to clouded summit. The cloud ceiling was starting to lift! We MIGHT get a view! The rest of Allis Trail was a continuous delight and we were soon back on the Long Trail.

[11:47am - Long Trail (north)]

The Long Trail started nice and easy and quickly became steep and scrambly, but thankfully the fun kind of steep and scrambly! A sign read:

"CAUTION

THE LONG TRAIL NORTH TO THE SUMMIT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW IN THE WINTER.

THE WHITE BLAZES AND SIGNS ARE OFTEN BURIED UNDER SNOW. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS SECTION WITHOUT PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ROUTE AND A MAP AND COMPASS"

The sign was written in Comic Sans font, which gave me a giggle. The Long Trail steeply scrambled up from the junction with Allis and quickly started provided tree views back to Mt. Ethan Allen, and soon opening up to a wonderful view of the mountain and the low(er) lands to the east.

Another steep stretch led to another series of views from a ledgy knob (we realized we could see this knob from Allis Trail - how fun!) with brief moments of sunlight - there was hope!

The trail continued it's rugged journey past one cool, tricky boulder scramble with a few more small views before staying in the woods for a while. We rambled slightly downhill for a small while, which was undesirable, but the trail was nice at least! A short slab climb led us to another gentle section with some more tree views towards the cloud-covered summit.

Naturally, the trail began to steepen again. The footing was actually pretty decent in this stretch, and we caught one more small viewpoint and the trail was delightfully lined with wildflowers. Our heart rates were pumping and we were slowing down, but just when we were running low on fumes we saw the sign for the Alpine Trail!

[1:09pm - Long Trail (north)/Alpine Trail]

I was now in familiar territory, as Emma and I followed the Alpine Trail up last Labor Day weekend when she famously had her "bad gas bubble" (it was a kidney infection). Just after the trail junction a sign welcomed us to the Alpine Zone, and after a quick scramble we were out in the open and caught a great, cloudy view back to Mt. Ethan Allen, which looked so small now!

We hiked past a duo looking for the plane crash, and I was THRILLED to actually have an ansower for them! We passed another Alpine Area sign as we continued to scramble around the summit cone. More and more views were popping out, which was enough to keep us going! At this point, I had FINALLY got Sarah caught up on the hell that I was living through in Florida - she is such a good friend to listening to all of that. 

We could see Lake Champlain as we started to climb up the slabs, and we could just barely make out some lower Adirondack peaks, too. We snacked on some alpine blueberries as the grasses blew in the wind, and soon enough, we were there!

[1:27pm - Camel's Hump Summit]

The summit expectedly had a decent amount of people, but it was uncrowded enough where we could sit by ourselves. The sun was really trying to come out, but thankfully the cloud ceiling had lifted! Even with the cloudy views, it was still 100x better than the views from when Emma and I were socked in! I got photos of the discs, noticed a GMC Summit Steward was set up for the day with his book, and we took another nice, long sit. I had my summit pizza and we continued to yap away - it was LOVELY.

[2:03pm - Long Trail (north)]

Our trip off of the summit started just as beautifully as the trip up was. We weaved in and out of the scrub before making a moderate descent with easy footing to the junction with the Burrows Trail. There was some signage:

"Why the String on the Summit?

This alpine zone is a part of one of three mountains in Vermont that can host alpine vegetation. Over 10,000 years ago, all of this land was arctic tundra & glaciers. When the climate began to change, alpine vegetation was out-competed by other larger species of plants. Today, there are roughly 16 sq. miles of alpine zone in all of New England. The summits rough environment allows these rare and endangered plants to thrive. However, summertime is when they are the most fragile to being trempled. The soil on the rocks is also very thin, so footsteps compres the dirt to where the roots can get no oxygen, and drown during rain. Once these plants are gone, they are gone forever. Please do your part by keeping yourself and your dog on the rocks! The string is just a friendly reminder to explore considerately.

Signed, the GMC caretakers"

[2:16pm - Burrows Trail]

From the clearing, we turned left to start our descent down the Burrows Trail, which featured a little bit of uphill before descending (rude!). This trail had the character of an old road that gets heavy foot traffic (i.e., erroded and not too pleasant). It started off fine with medium-okay-but-rocky footing and moderately steep, and it continued, and continued, and continued. We both went in and out of the void for this descent as it was simply not overly pleasant (we later acknowledged we're both weenies and it was literally fine).

We passed some good mushrooms and about halfway down the grade mellowed out, but the trail continued to slog. The Catamount Trail appeared and disappeared at a point and there were also a couple of clear trail relocations. On a plus, a yellow leaf fell on me!!

Further down the Burrows Trail began to cross some small streams and began to flatten out in a lush, green forest. There were a few airplanes overhead, and after what felt like days, we hit a staircase at a recent reroute (AllTrails said we were off-course). Sarah pointed out that we hadn't been catcalled by any red squirrels, which was crazy. Thankfully, after a few more trips in and out of the void, we made it to the parking lot and our journey was almost complete!

A trailhead kiosk read;

"Camel's Hump State Park is Vermont's largest state park, conserving over 21,000 acres of land. In 1911, Colonel Joseph Battell gifted ~1,000 acres to the state, which included the summit, seeding the park's creation. The lowlands have been inhabited by indigenous people for millennia and the original Abenaki name for Camel's Hump is Tawapodiiwajo, meaning "place-to-sit-in mountain" or "mountain seat."

One of the Oldest Trails in VT. The Burrows Trail is the oldest known trail on Camel's Hump built by European settlers. Established before 1860, the "Huntington Trail," as it was called, was built into a bridle path for horseback riders, giving access to a hotel below the summit. Today it remains a sustainable path thanks to the collaborative stewardship by FPR and their partner organization, the Green Moutnain Club."

[3:32pm - Burrows - Forest City Connector Trail]

We had a lovely, quick and easy trip down the Burrows - Forest City Connector Trail, which was delightfully short and featured some delightful bridges, ending with the bridge over the falls we saw before! The bridge was labeled "1991 ON TOP SCHOOL - VT. DEPT. OF FORESTS, PARKS, & RECREATION."

[3:36pm - Forest City Trail]

We ultimately skipped the swimming holes because I am predictable (Sarah is such a good sport, I know she loves a swimming hole, but I was tired and hungry!). We had a similarly delightfully easy walk down the Forest City Trail along the brook, past the furnace, and over the bridge, soon landing back at the car!

[3:56pm - End of Hike]

We did our quick changes at the car, did a little baby wipe bath, and then Sarah shuttled me to my rental Accord. She started her trip back to Massachusetts and I continued onward to Emma's - that was a great hike! I'm glad we did it in the direction we did. And for the record, I won fart baseball 5-to-0.

Step-by-Step

- Start hike on Forest City Trail.

- At terminus, turn right onto Long Trail (south).

- At Mt. Ethan Allen, turn around.

- At jct., continue straight onto Alli's Trail.

- At terminus, continue straight onto Long Trail (north).

- Summit Camel's Hump, then continue on Long Trail (north).

- At jct., turn left onto Burrow's Trail.

- At terminus, turn left onto Forest City Connector.

- At terminus, turn right onto Forest City Trail.

- Return to car.

Map of Camel's Hump State Park

Photo Album