By Compass Vermont

Sarah J. has been walking north since spring. Day 128 of her Appalachian Trail thru-hike was her last full day in Vermont — a sunrise she made herself get up for, six miles before mid-morning, and then New Hampshire the following day.

The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost 2,200 miles between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states. It coincides with the Long Trail for 105 miles in southern Vermont before veering east, into New Hampshire.

Other hikers had been telling her for weeks that she could not leave the state without getting a maple creemee. Not a summit, not a swimming hole. A creemee. She took the detour down from the Woodstock trailhead and got one.

Vermonters mostly experience the creemee as a thing that has always been there, which makes it easy to forget it reads as a genuine local specialty to people passing through — something you’re instructed to do before you go, the way you’d be told about a dish in another country.

She ended the day almost 20 miles later, in the yard of a woman who lives near the state line and lets hikers camp there for nothing. That is the other Vermont thing on her last day here, and she gets the woman’s name, her dog’s name, and her cat’s name into the post.

All Hail the Vermont Maple Creemee (Day 128) — The Trek