If you’re lucky, your next New England hike will include a glimpse of some furry, four-legged denizen of the brush. Maybe it’s a lone red squirrel, scrabbling from branch to branch and emitting its tinny battle cry. Perhaps it’s a duo of deer, gingerly stepping across the path and offering the sort of look you give someone when you’re frantically trying to recall their name, after they’ve just greeted you by name. It could even be the snout and eyes of a black bear curiously poking up through some ferns toward the trail traffic, a sight that would be cute if black bears weren’t physically capable of pulping you like the raw ingredients for gazpacho. (Granted, this is extremely rare.)
But in northern Vermont, at the crossroads of the Stowe ski region and the Champlain Valley, a different kind of fluffy trail lord awaits and charms unsuspecting hikers. The creature dwells in the woods around Stowe Pinnacle, a relatively small mountain in the Putnam State Forest that punches above its weight when it comes to sweeping views of the Green Mountains. I first encountered this gregarious soul in 2018 when scouting trails for Moon New England Hiking and I’ve seen him again on each repeat visit to the peak. To this day, he’s pretty much known as the czar of Stowe Pinnacle.
I’d like you all to meet Sampson.
You might find him trotting down the trail ahead of you as you make your way over the bog bridges that lead into the deciduous forest on Stowe Pinnacle’s haunches. (It’s a 3.7-mile out-and-back hike with 1,600 feet of elevation gain.) Just as often, you’ll see Sampson hanging out on the summit itself, basking in the sun and allowing people to form a queue to give him tousles and belly rubs. But the crucial things to know about Sampson are that he really like hikers, and on any given day, he’s roaming the trails on Stowe Pinnacle with the air of an old hermit, wandering the woods with a knowing grin.
So how does a friendly golden retriever become a trail czar? In this case, it all comes down to location and canine cunning. Sampson’s owner, Perry Schafer, lives relatively close to the Stowe Pinnacle Trail, and according to a Burlington Free Press story by Austin Danforth, Schafer adopted Sampson after her other golden retriever, Baylor, went missing in a blizzard. But once the snow had melted, Baylor came back home and a bond formed between the two dogs. They learned how to open doors around Schafer’s house and soon, they were taking their own jaunts up the nearby mountain.
On paper, this sort of free range golden retriever arrangement could provoke words like “negligent” and “liability.” As their owner herself said in her interview with the Burlington Free Press, “I hate that they run off and I know some people see it as irresponsible dog ownership,” before conceding, “They are just outdoor dogs.” The ground reality here is that the gentle presence of Samspon and Baylor on Stowe Pinnacle has imbued the mountain with a mythic quality. They’re exceedingly kind dogs whom you look forward to revisiting as much as the windy summit, and I say that as a hiker who’s generally not a fan of unleashed dogs on trails—because dog owners can never fully predict how their pooch might react to stimuli on the trails, including hikers and other creatures. Sampson and Baylor’s unsupervised hiking excursions could have gone very badly if either of them had gotten too feisty and aggressive in the face of hikers. There’s always the oft-chance this could happen.
But given how long Samspon and Baylor reigned as the doting stewards of Stowe Pinnacle, amassing a fanbase and even earning the cinematic treatment with a short documentary about their lifestyle (Aynsley Floyd’s The Mountain Dogs), I think it’s safe to say that the Pinnacle and its resident golden retrievers are an unusual example of wildness and domestication in harmony. I’m used to dogs who live near trails being territorial and paranoid, yapping their heads off when they smell the Goldfish crumbs in my backpack. Sampson and Baylor, on the other hand, embody the egalitarian spirit that’s often overlooked in hiking culture, cheerfully sharing their backyard with others.
So why did I begin this newsletter by highlighting only Sampson, and not the duo? The answer, I’m sad to say, is that Baylor passed away in 2020 at age 12. Now, Sampson carries the mantle of “Pinnacle dogs” for both of them and at 14 years, he’s already pushed beyond the average lifespan for a golden retriever. If you’re looking at these waning weeks of summer with a sense of urgency, trying to decide where to ramble before the leaves begin to crisp and fall, think about the summers to come and the reality that only a handful of living things come back each spring. For every lost dog that somehow returns home when the snow is gone, many more embark on a longer journey with an “end” that we can only contemplate in wonder. Baylor has done both.
As Kim Nilsen, the founder of the Cohos Trail once told me, “Trail is long, life is short.” Thankfully, the Stowe Pinnacle Trail isn’t that long and it’s only a matter of time in the woods before Sampson, the remaining trail czar, sniffs you out and happily greets you.
Don’t take my word for it. Go up there and meet him before it’s cold and snowy again.
STOWE PINNACLE via THE STOWE PINNACLE TRAIL
Hike distance: 3.7 miles out-and-back
Elevation gain: 1,604 feet
CLICK HERE for a trail map