Which hike would YOU rather take?

[Whitey9457]

I'm planning my big trip for the summer and I have about a month off and I wanna try and do a trip about 300 miles...I'm mostly trying to decide where to go within Northern New England (VT/NH/ME). I was thinking

A. Start on MA/VT line and hike to around the NH/ME line.
B. Start on VT/NH line and hike as far as I can into ME.
C. Start on the NH/ME line and hike to Katahdin.
D. The Long Trail.

Why?

I've never done any of these and right now I'm mostly deciding between whether i start at MA/VT or VT/NH because I really want to hike through the White Mountains but ME and the LT are still strong options so please let me know.

PS. I'm going to be going during black fly season so I was thinking the White Mtns would be best but again you guys would know better than me because I've never done it.

[Nean]

I'd do the LT instead of a section. My reason is why not? No matter the hike, be it 3m, 300m, or 3000m it's hard to go wrong. Good luck!

[Quoddy]

The Long Trail. A great hike, especially for the time frame you're looking at. It was so good that I'm going to re-do most, if not all of it before doing a thru of the Colorado Trail this year.

[rafe]

There are no bad options in your list. The LT has the advantage of having useful endpoints, ie., you could say "I hiked the Long Trail." The northern part of the LT, from what I hear, as as hard as anything on the AT -- though I'm guessing it's about the same as southern Maine in most regards. The southern half of the LT (between the MA/VT line and Killington/Pico) is pretty mellow.

[Tinker]

I'd recommend the Long Trail. Save the AT for later if you ever intend to thruhike it. You'll have a great time on a wild (relative to the NH section of the AT) trail and get a "long trail" under your belt (if that is a desire of yours). I did the LT in sections. Had the best time of my life.
My second vote would be to do the NH/Me line north to wherever. Again, wild, scenic, wonderful.
The White Mountains are good for meeting people if that's what you're into. They have the "Smog" Railway and "Lakes of the Crowds" hut. Southern NH is nicer.

[fiddlehead]

Southern VT is fairly boring compared to the rest.
Northern VT is much nicer.
LT would be a good choice and so would doing all of Maine. (both tough hiking) But wouldn't you rather save that for a thru hike of the AT?

[Sly]

No question, I'd do Maine again in a heartbeat. Not so much the LT. Once is enough.

[Whitey9457]

I do really want to do a thru hike at some point but i'm in law school and will have mad loans to pay back when I'm done so i really don't know when i'd realistically have time to do a thru hike but that is basically my dream...i may take a semester off next year and do a thru hike if i enjoy this trip...it sucks because everyone i'm asking says do the LT and that was my original plan, but i feel like i want more/higher mountains than VT has and thats why I wanted to do the Whites and plus my family lives in NH so getting dropped off and picked up would be easy but I may give the LT a rethinking because it would be cool to do the whole trail as opposed to just a section of the AT...its a hard decision though...not to mention there is no like big finale with the LT, like if i hike VT/MA line -> NH/ME I could end near Mt. Washington, and if I hiked ME then there'd be Katahdin... oh well this forum didn't make the decision any easier hahaha

[rafe]

Nothing wrong with doing all of Maine. It's beautiful. The southern 2/3 of the state is pretty tough hiking.

[modiyooch]

B. beautiful and difficult IMO

[Sly]

More hostels in Maine. Every town has at least one.

[warraghiyagey]

Start at Katahdin and head south. What a way to hit the ground running!!!:sun:sun

[BackTrack1]

I'd do the Long Trail, if you only have a month, 30 days would be great to have to do the whole trail, then you could just take your time and take in the scenery, I did it last yr. and am planning to do alot of it again this yr.