No doubt about it, Vermont has some of the finest forestry to observe. Early summer, yes it’ll be buggy, provides mild temperatures during the day and cool temperatures at night. The perfect time to explore the ancient highways of the Green Mountain State.

Meeting up at the old potato plantation of one of our friends during the late evening on a Friday, friends and family gathered around a roaring campfire to settle in and prepare for two, much anticipated, days of back country travel.

For this trip I asked my friend Tim if I could be a passenger so that I’d be able to spend time filming the trip. So for the next two days I got to travel in one of the coolest trucks I’ve encountered, a Land Rover Lightweight. It’s old, smells, smokes and makes a ton of noise. But, it oozes character. It pretty much rides like it’s sprung with rocks instead of springs, has a few too many holes where metal should be and tops out around 55 mph. But it didn’t find an obstacle it couldn’t overcome. During that ride I vowed that I would find one of these gems to come and live in my garage.

We had quite an eclectic collection of vehicles with us. A couple of newer Jeep Rubicons, a few Land Rover Defenders and older Series trucks, a smattering of Jeep Cherokees, Land Cruisers and Tacomas.

The trails are pleasant. Ranging from dense undergrowth that needed to be bushwacked to get through, to tall pines that you passed on a bed of needles.There were the slippery mud slopes littered with large damp boulders, and fender deep mud bogs that became winch fests to get through. An obstacle would provide a couple of hours worth of work to get through, then coming through to the other side, we’d be rewarded with a pristine stream, complete with a cascading waterfall, on the other side. The perfect spot to break open the fridge and eat lunch by. Complete with an old wooden bridge that you would swear could not hold the weight of the vehicles. But yet, they do, and probably have done so for a hundred and fifty years.

I’ll be looking forward to next year, another trip through the Jungles of Southern Vermont, tales from an Ol’ Plantation, and the sights of flowing waterfalls.

The Vermont Expedition Society has developed a tradition over the last few years of having a New Year’s Day trail run first thing on New Year’s Day. Having missed the last couple of runs, I wanted to make it a point to be sure to attend this one.

The day started bright and early (well, dark and early) as Jacob and I got up at 5am to meet Peter V. at Brattleboro, VT by 8am. It was cold… like 3 below when we left in the dark. We made it to Vermont with a little time to spare so I made sure I re-filled at Dunkin’ Donuts. Peter arrived and we caravaned south into Ma.

Met up with the rest of the early morning crew and headed pff to the trail. There was a pretty good snow covering (6 or so inches), and 3 or more inch ice covering the waterways.

The going was pretty quick, even with the cold. My picture taking duties were severely limited. For some great shots, look here.