Mount Ascutney: Vermont's Ancient Volcano and First Hiking Trail
Near Woodstock, Vermont
The solitary peak rising to your west is Mount Ascutney, a monadnock, meaning a mountain that stands alone because the softer rock around it eroded away while its core endured. Its core is the cooled plug of an ancient volcano, formed roughly one hundred twenty million years ago from repeated magma intrusions.
The Abenaki name, Ascutegnik, means roughly at the end of the river fork, describing the confluence of the Sugar River with the Connecticut far below.
Local residents cut a trail to its summit in the nineteenth century. Long before hiking became recreation, people were climbing Ascutney.
