Across the street from Billings Farm, Woodstock, VT. Carriage road to Pogue and then to Star and Precipice Trail back ~ 4.5 miles
For those who are not familiar with the hike to the pogue and star on top of Mt Tom, it is a very easy and pretty hike. You take an old carriage road up the mountain and there are signs along the way to lead you there.
The pogue is a man made pond that is fed by natural springs. When I was a kid someone (my dad) told me it was an old volcano so it used to be a lot cooler to me. The star is a combination of a cross and a star that are lit for Easter and Christmas. From downtown Woodstock, they are directly on top of one of the church steeples and it has always been a pretty sight. Rumor has it some folks moved into Woodstock and complained about the cross so it is no longer lit up, but the star is still illuminated for Christmas.
We took the carriage road up to the pogue. It was starting to freeze over and it made the most amazing music as Ang and Justin bounced pebbles across it. We then continued to go up and across a big field to look for a water bottle that Justin had lost there on a recent school trip. Of course it wasn’t there but we looked anyway. We crossed back down the field and headed to the star. As I mentioned earlier, this is an easy hike. There are a few side paths that can be taken to make it a harder hike, but we stayed on the carriage path to the star.
Once at the star, you can look and see most of Woodstock. It is a picturesque view of a quintessential New England town. This is where our hike became a bit adventurous. My dad decided that we should take the Precipice Trail back.
The Precipice Trail starts out steep and narrow and should not be used unless it is dry out. There is an old metal railing installed and a metal lip that runs through some of the steeper sections to keep people from falling, but it is incredibly old and should be used at your own risk. There are lots of great rock formations and even a small cave. Eventually the trail brought us back close to the beginning of the carriage road.
Warning: the rest of this post is really just a trip down memory lane
For those of you who know me, you know Mt Tom was my old stomping ground. Up until the late 90’s my aunt and uncle lived in the twin cottages and I would stay with them often. My cousins and I played baseball, went sledding, climbed trees, built forts, and rode bikes all over these grounds.
My dad took us up to the pogue and the star on many occasions and I have many many fond memories of this hike, including the first time I swore. My aunt called out the window to warn us to “watch out for the horse sh!t.” No one heard her so they called out “what?” She said it again but still no one heard her, so my 4 or 5 year old self shouted, “she said, watch out for the horse sh!t!” I didn’t get in trouble per se but I was told not to repeat that again!
There was also the time my dad took me and my cousin Ekiah hiking up to the pogue. I was wearing a red sweatshirt. I remember the shirt clearly — it had a satin ice cream cone with pink colored ice cream sewn on it. I also had on a red turtle neck on underneath it. On the way to the pogue there is a farmer’s field on the right hand side. There used to be a bull in this field and the only thing keeping it from passersby was a barbed wire fence. They say bulls can’t actually see color, but on this particular day, the bull was locked on to me. He was snorting and pawing the ground. My dad asked me to take off my sweatshirt and I did, but when he asked me to take off my other red shirt, I refused. My cousin was a boy, after all. He pleaded with me to just do it, but I still said no. As a child I didn’t understand that the bull could come right through that fence if he wanted to, and I really didn’t appreciate how dangerous the situation was. The bull was not forgetting about me, so my dad had to act quickly and took us off trail to get some distance between us and the bull. (The pic below of me and my red hat is in front of the bull’s field. If you look close you can still see the barbed wire fence.)
Perhaps it was my dad’s way of getting the kids out of the house while the other adults cooked, but over time, this hike became a traditional Thanksgiving day hike. Approximately 6 years ago, was the last time we made this hike. On the way up not much further than the wood shed, my father turned to the group and said, “I am having a weird pain,” and he drew a line with his hand on his chest near his heart. Many of us in my family get the weird tightness in our chest when eating starchy foods and since we had just eaten a big dinner, I attributed it to that and told him to “just walk it off.” He did, and fortunately he didn’t have a heart attack that day, because it wasn’t soon after that he failed a stress test, did have “an episode” and was rushed to the hospital to have angioplasty. We are so grateful he made it!
Fast forward several years of busy schedules, health issues, and of course Covid-19, and we were all finally together again in Vermont on Thanksgiving day, so hiking to the star was mandatory! We couldn’t get everyone jazzed up about the hike, but we were able to get several together to go.
This was a fantastic hike for many reasons, I got to spend time with loved one, my dad, Kat, Justin, Ang and Ben, and it was especially fantastic because my dad was nice and healthy. He is the person who first turned me on to hiking, taught me to carry out what I carry in, and respect nature.
Adventurers included: Jes, Jon, Ang, Ben, Katherine, Justin & Jasper