Milk & Hiking: A Visit to a Vermont Organic Dairy Farm, plus a Taste of the AT in New Hampshire

First of all, this fair warning: If you visit a regular dairy farm and an organic dairy farm back-to-back, you might never want to drink regular milk again.

To be perfectly frank, the cows looked sickly and pathetic crowded in their barn at the regular dairy farm I visited in Vermont, while they were happy and roaming free on the grass _ with no pesticides or hormones in their bodies _ at the farm a few miles away run by my friends, the Millers, near Brattleboro.

Maybe I just happen to visit the regular farm at a bad time, but still ...

Anyway, I got a chance to visit the Millers again last week. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip as my son and I took the train to Vermont and New Hampshire, where we spent the night on the farm and spent a few days on the Appalachian Trail.

We only spent three days on the trail, staying near the Dartmouth area. Didn't venture near the White Mountains this time, but there are still great hikes and wonderful views to be had. We reached the top of Moose Mountain, where the summit is cleared in part because of a rescue helicopter landing following a plane crash many years ago, and also enjoyed the splendid view at Holt's Ledge. We spent the night at the Trapper John Shelter, named after the M*A*S*H character who graduated from Dartmouth.

There are more photos on our MyHikingVacations Facebook page.

And, of course, if these get your hiking juices flowing, visit our website MyHikingVacations and sign up for one of our 2014 hiking trips. Vermont in on the list, along with Switzerland, Vegas and the Shenandoah.

See you on the trails,
Joseph

A New Look _ and New Adventures for 2014 _ from My Hiking Vacations

Times change fast in the online world. A website that looked so fresh and exciting in 2008 can appear so dated just five years later.

Here at My Hiking Vacations, we like to think we can keep up. We've put the same energy we use for hiking into a redesign of our website, and today we are happy to announce its relaunch.

So take a gander at MyHikingVacations.com. You'll see more than just new colors and photos _ you'll also see our just-released list of hiking/walking trips for 2014.

Check out Vegas/Nevada in May.

And Vermont in June.

And Switzerland in July.

And the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in October.

Vegas? Vermont? Virginia? Yeah, we're stuck on Vs next year. Maybe the Switzerland trip should include a stop at Vers-chez-le-Blanc.

We'll also have more to blog about in the coming weeks. We just returned from a hiking trip in New Hampshire, and recently I hiked in Austria for the first time. (OK, it was only for a few hours, but it was snowy and beautiful.)

See you on the trails.

Joseph