Prospect Rock – Manchester, VT

After two days of Dead of Summer, my buddy and Jay and I set out for a short morning hike up to Prospect Rock.

The weather was sunny, hot and a bit humid but on the trail it was refreshing and cool in the shade.

We got to the parking lot next to a large water tower. The lot held about 15 cars and was just about full. We were lucky to get the last spot.

We started up the trail which is more like a steep class 6 road. The hike itself was not very interesting. As we climbed up we could look off the side of the road to a very steep dropoff.

Before long we got to the trail junction. At this junction the Appalachian Trail, Long Trail and Prospect Rock trail meet.

We stopped and saw a sign that said look up. When we did look up we saw the Prospect Rock sign was higher up in the trail. A little trail humor for hikers, I guess.

The path to Prospect Rock is short. About a hundred feed. When we got to the rock the there were a few people.

There were some beautiful views of Manchester, Vermont, Mt. Equinox and the Taconic Mountain range.

There is also a fantastic view of Manchester Center from the rock. We could even see the Dead of Summer festival tents in a field off in the distance.

While we were there we chatted with a few others people that stopped by. Some of the were also at the festival and needed a little nature break.

The walk down was pretty straight forward and went quickly. We were able to make it back to the festival in time to see the Brown Eyed Women band.

Fun excursion to this viewpoint. It was not hard and not long so this was a perfect morning adventure.