Autumn Rememberies: First snow

Finally,

the last weekend in October,

snow and ice at the higher elevations.

Eagle Pass was pure awesomeness so it gets 2 pics.

And beyond the pass: W I N T E R!

Up in the menacing fog, above that frozen lake,

hides the peak I was after.

It was one more mile and 1K more elevation.
Forget THAT. No peak bagged on this day.

I headed back down.

It didn't feel like a good day to die.

Autumn Rememberies: The last bit of summer

The third weekend in October.
Summer's surprise goodbye party.
More peak bagging.
This was Webster and Jackson.

Mmmmm. Sunshine.

But watch out, gray jay on the peak. Winter really is coming.

Autumn Rememberies: October hail

WOOT!

Autumn Rememberies: Hot dustiness, warming up to the Whites

 Back to the Whites!
It was the end of September.

The little cricket was singing:

summer's over winter's coming soon it will be cold.

Duly noted, but not on THIS day.

Hot dustiness: sensual and scrumptious.

It was magnificent.

I will go back there.
Too bad September can't last forever.

Autumn Rememberies: To the 'Daks!

 September. It is easy to be happy in September.
If you happen to be coming from Burlington, Vermont (which I was),

you can ride a ferry across Lake Champlain

from Charlotte (shar - LOT) to Essex, New York,

then drive about 2 hours to the high peaks in the 'Daks

(which I did.)

It was twilight

and the water was rough

and it was windy.

I stood at the bow close to the chain

and felt the spray as the bow crashed into the waves.

It was exhilarating.

Then I camped at the side of a remote road.

It rained all night.

The next day I climbed a favorite peak.
The trail was littered with the Signs Of Golden Happiness.

Clouds were rolling in and out.

It would get so foggy we had to grope our way
from cairn to cairn.

I camped out a second night.
The clouds blew off and the stars came out.

I shared a campfire.
We watched stars and told stories.
It was fun.
Yay 'Daks!

The End.

Summer Rememberies: Moriah and a geography lesson

In the eastern U.S. and Canada
the mountains are all worn down and puny

'cause they are O L D.

Relatively speaking of course.

The Appalachian Range runs from Alabama, way down south,

all the way up to Newfoundland in Canada.

It includes many places I hike regularly,

like the Green Mountains in Vermont,

and the White Mountains in New Hampshire,

but NOT the Adirondacks in New York.

The Adirondacks

(which might be my soul's true home, if you recall)

are part of a range running north into Quebec, Canada.

They were formed at a different geological time
in a different geological way.

See google for details.

So what does all that mean to you and me?

Nuthin' really.
I was just digressing.
I am good at that.
Which is sorta sad becuase it makes me boring.
 Self-eval: Kind-hearted, but lacks focus.
I mean, maybe not kind-hearted ACTUALLY,
but the wish to be kind-hearted is in me.
And I practice kind-heartedness,
to try to get it right
and make it a habit,
so someday, someone might describe me as:
"kind-hearted, but lacks focus."

Anyway...

I was saying...

Becuase they are old and puny,
a mountain over 4,000 feet in the east

is worthy of questing after.

So we climb the 46 over 4,000 feet in the 'Daks,

and the 5 in the Greens,

and the 48 in the Whites,
and let ourselves feel all special about it.

I have 9 left in the 'Daks. Long-ass snotty hikes.

And it's a long-ass snotty drive,

so I decided to start questing in the Whites,

which are much closer to me.

The Whites and the 'Daks are the same, but different.

The hikes in the Whites are shorter,

but steeper and more dangerous.

The 'Daks are more wilderness-like,

with longer approach hikes to the high peaks.

All this to say that I hiked my second 4K peak in the Whites,

called Moriah,

on a nondescript summer day,

with a nondescript group of people,

and it was a ho hum sorta hike.

Ten miles. Lots of elevation.

But it wasn't the 'Daks, if ya know what I mean.

Summer Rememberies: Discovering The Ultimate Retirement Home

You can stay in this place anytime you want. For free. I swear. I am not making this up. You just have to hike to it. It has a wood stove so you can stay during the winter. Which I did. Am doing. Will do.

(Rememberies have complex grammatical tense requirements --

 about which I know nothing.)

The approach.

The view from the front porch.

The front porch.

The loft.

World class porch sitting.

Da ta! (OSM: I don't remember my nose looking so big.)

Ooooo! I am cute!

I am SO cute that I need TWO pics of me.

Wretched heat and humidity finally abate

Five (5) weeks of hikes not worth mentioning, through clouds of bugs in sweltering heat and horrid humidity, gave me the resolve I needed to form a new Rule For Hiking Happiness:

Never hike south of the Berkshires.

Ever.

The trauma of the past weeks of heat and humidity also caused me to abandon one of my Rules For Creating Illusions Of Attractiveness: never wear shorts while hiking. Why did I ever care if my old knees showed or not? From what ridiculously self-centered, vain, delusional, self-concept was I suffering? Whatever... it's over now. Thank gods.

So Sunday was a beautiful day.

The kind of day that makes you feel like taking some pics.

(1) Wrong turn in Montpelier so I "oops-ed" past the lovely gold-domed capitol building.

(2) Got to feel like Awesome Scrambler on the rocks. Probably the rope was not necessary here but it enhanced my feelings of uber-ness, false though they were.

(3) Another pic of rope and rock becuase it was that much fun.

(4) Say hello to Camel's Hump, please. Bee tee dubs, I messed up in a previous post -- Camel's Hump is the third highest spot in VT, not the second. Killington is second and I have been up that one 3 x's, so I am not going to be interested in it anytime soon.

(5) Faires live in this col between the 2 mountains I hiked. They maintained a rule a Utter Silence and commanded that a cool wind blow in from nowhere to shoo the bugs away.

The End

Camel's Hump: second highest spot in Vermont, second time

Walkin' Blues by I forget who

Saturday, June 22:
same weather, same pants, different peak, VERY hot feet

PSTVD: Long-winded self-aggrandizing self-centered hiking rant

I acquired Post-Swiss Traumatic View Disorder
while going over all the photos from last summer's Swiss hiking trip.

Did I really need 21 pictures of that cloud?

REALLY??

The Matterhorn is nice and all but 56 photos of it????

I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

So I decided I needed an adventure to cleanse my esthetic lens.

I was slow getting started because I also acquired

Post-Swiss Traumatic Hiking Clothes Disorder from looking like

Klutz Bag:

The Incredible Shrinking Hiker

soooooo....

I spent a lot of time rooting though my stuff looking for a pair of hiking pants that made me feel like

Old Lady Sexy Bod Tight Pants.

Note: PSTHCD is frequently confused with an obscure condition acquired from smoking too much Thai stick while on holiday in Switzerland.

OK, back to the matter at hand. I finally found a pair of black, hip hugging, stylishly belled hiking pants that I had dismissed years ago as being "too young" for me. WOO HOO!! Just what I needed for this adventure.

I decided to walk to the highest spot in Vermont. Long time readers with an intact organic google function in their wetware will recall that I had been close to that spot before. All others click here

===>  MOUNT MANSFIELD #1

Mt. Mansfield #2 Salient Points:

(1) Gorgeous Day

(2) GREAT PANTS !!!!!!
(Yes, I know that there are now twelve (12) exclamation points in this post, but so far I have not received any warnings from the Blogger Police regarding profligate exclamation point usage.)

(3) HUGE yummy gluten free cookie to think about on the uphill slog

(4) Enough uphill slog to provide respite from the daily drone of horizontal walking

(5) You didn't think it would be lonely at the highest spot in Vermont on a gorgeous day, did you?

(6) The reason I could get there this time was becuase I came at it from a different direction, so I hiked past the summit until I found the cliff that had stopped me 2 years ago.

I WIN!!

  

My Awesomely Attired Feet, A Mole's Life Revealed, and Other Miscellaneous Snowy Things

You see just to the left in the upper corner? 

That is a Mole's Life Revealed!

I saw the mole!

He was scurrying away in a fright as I crunched up the trail.

 There was a mind-boggling thaw last week -- 50 degrees and raining -- then a spate of below zero and powdery cold flurries. It left the things which live in the woods exposed and confused.

  I hiked to this beautiful lean-to on a beautiful remote pond in a beautiful remote spot in the Adirondacks.

 Ahhhh, lunch time shelter.

 It was a bit to cold to linger long.

 But the cold made my little meal seem feast-like and tantalizingly yummy.

 And there was a lovely view of the pond. It was snowy and blowing.

 But the NEXT day? WOW-ZERS! The sky was a bright Adirondack blue.

Familiar Territory with Retirement Home

Last weekend's snowshoe.

I know it looks just like the pictures of the woods on my previous snowshoe post BUT... I know all the streams and rocks and trees and bends in this trail.

When I was teaching, I would hike up the old road behind the town graveyard every day. Once a week during my special double free period, I would go all the way up to the high meadow. I would also frequently take my class up into these woods for a hike.

The view across the high meadow last weekend.

Same view, summer 2011

I have been charmed by the ambiance of this dwelling since 2004, the first time I hiked up here.

Summer 2011

It is wired for sound! There is evidence of the old electric wires running up through the woods.

The familiar view out across the valley coming back down. We used to go sledding in the graveyard.