Mount Mansfield: Vermont's Highest Peak

Mount Mansfield, at four thousand three hundred ninety-three feet, is the highest peak in Vermont, and it has defined the skyline above Stowe since long before anyone called the valley by its current name. The Abenaki people, who lived in this region for thousands of years before European settlement, described the mountain as resembling a moose. English-speaking settlers saw a different shape: when viewed from the east or west, the long ridgeline traces the silhouette of a human face lying on its back, and the summit features have been named accordingly. The highest point is called the Chin, which at four thousand three hundred ninety-three feet is the actual summit. To the south of it come the lips and the Nose, and just north of it sits the Adam's Apple.

The summit ridge of Mount Mansfield is one of only three places in Vermont where alpine tundra survived the end of the last ice age. That zone of high-elevation plants, roughly two hundred acres, represents an ecosystem otherwise found in the Arctic and in the high mountains of the western states. The plants are fragile. The Green Mountain Club and Vermont state authorities ask hikers to stay on marked paths across the tundra.

The Long Trail, a roughly two-hundred-seventy-mile footpath running the length of Vermont, crosses Mount Mansfield. Below the summit, the east-facing slopes are used by Stowe Mountain Resort for skiing. The Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol is the oldest continuously operating ski patrol in the United States.