Le Lion Couchant or Camels Hump

[Camels Hump was called the Crouching Lion by the French; of course it had another name before de Champlain 'discovered' it, which was for the Waubawekee Indians, Tawabodi-e-wadso, the Saddle Mountain. In 1789 Ira Allen called it Camel's Rump. Then, in 1830 Zadock Thompson called it Camel's Hump.]

Since today is my legitimate day off and it was supposed to be cool and clear, I decided to go up Camels Hump (4083 feet), that funky mountain that is the north central part of the state. It is the mountain that is on the Vermont quarter and one that is readily visible if you fly into Burlington.

The hike on the Monroe trail is much more gentle than going up Hunger Mountain. It has places where it levels out, and it never really gets strenuous. The elevation gain is only 1800 feet over 3.4 miles.

It took me an hour and 35 minutes to go up and an hour and 20 minutes to come down. I am always surprised at how little difference there is between the ascent and descent times. Camels Hump has rare and endangered tundra grass up top so one sticks to the rocks up on the summit.

Up top today we could see 100 miles in all directions:

north to Stowe/Mount Mansfield

south to Mount Allen and beyond that Killington/Pico

east to the NH Whites. I got a through-hiker on the Long Trail to take a photo of me -- over my right shoulder you can see the Worcester Range, with Hunger Mountain being the hump in the middle; over my left shoulder if you look hard or imagine, you can make out Mounts Jefferson, Clay and Washington. The snake-like line in the valley below is Route 89.

It was cool up top... and it was quite busy with the one through-hiker (who started on the 4th and will finish on the 28th), two overnight hikers doing just a segment from the Appalachian Gap to Route 2, and a bunch of day hikers like me.

Glorious day -- nice enough that I might have played hookey if it weren't my day off.