Green Mountain National Forest

Green Mountain National Forest is a national forest located in Vermont, a forest area typical of the New England/Acadian forests ecoregion. The forest supports a variety of wildlife, including beaver, moose, coyote, black bear, and white tailed deer. It also supports an abundant variety of bird species, such as wild turkey and ruffed grouse. The forest, being situated in Vermont’s Green Mountains, has been referred to as the ‘granite backbone’ of the state.

The forest was established in 1932, as a result of uncontrolled overlogging, fire and flooding.[3] It consists of 399,151 acres (1,615.31 km2); and is the biggest contiguous land mass in the state. If Finger Lakes National Forest, which is managed as a unit of the Green Mountain National Forest, is included within it, GMNF is one of only two national forest northeast of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey barrier; the other being the White Mountain National Forest. Split into the southwest and central areas, GMNF has a total of eight wilderness areas. These were designated by Congress beginning with the Wilderness Act of 1964 to be areas off limits to mechanized gear down to and including bicycles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_National_Forest
http://www.fs.usda.gov/greenmountain

May 29, 2016 Evening

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71 degrees on Forest Road 71. Stopping up here as I know I have good cellphone service and I needed to check my phone for work email. Parked by a swamp along the upper end of the road and based on my observations out of the truck windows, the black flies are intense.

Today the water and sun was nice at Grout Pond until the front pushed in and brought thick low clouds that look like fog in the mountains. The pond seemed warmer than yesterday but it varied a lot as there still a fair amount of cold water still cycling up. Still I’m glad it’s warm and nice. I’m tired of winter.

Went down to West Westboro to buy some ice at a very traditional general store. By the time I reached West Westboro, I think I would have been better off going to Arlington. Would have had better cellphone reception there. That said, I remembered the place on Forest Road 71 with the good reception.

Never got to use the kayak. I really should have explored Grout Pond or Branch Pond yesterday, when I had the boat on my roof. Oh well. I’ve done it before. It would have been choppy on the lake today.

Heavy rain or thunderstorms is coming my way, so I should probably head back to camp, so I’m not driving through it.