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.

Awesome Deep Snow With Moose Tracks

Up in the wilds we were intrepidatious and adventuristic.

Trail closed. Pfft. Let's go anyway.

Irene, you bitch.

Just a couple of trees down. Nothing too serious.

We saw the depressions where 5 large bodies slept. Moose or trolls, we weren't sure which.

We saw other interesting things, too.

Iced troll penis?

Retirement Home Candidate #36

I found this charmer over a year ago.

I went inside to see how it would feel to wake up here in the morning.
It felt good.

Retirement Home Candidate #74

A bit of a fixer upper but only a short hike away from this lovely spot:

It was another nice day to be in the woods.

Retirement Home Candidate #62

It was an inspiring day for a hike, clear and cold. The leaves were frosty and the sky was blue. There were lots of interesting things to see.

Higher up, it was winter. There was ice and snow.

It would be a good place to live, in a shack, with a wood stove and a chainsaw.

Why there is no high peakage in my summer

June 2012

Switzerland!!

Mt. Mansfield

Vermont has mountains. I don't have to go to the Adirondacks for a challenging hike. I decided to hike Mt. Mansfield, the highest mountain in Vermont.

I hiked up this trail. It did, indeed, contain quite a bit of vertical hauling and scrambling. Enough that I knew I did NOT want to go back down it.

The summit cone from the top of Hell Brook, called the "chin." It looks so impressive, right?






I got tantalizingly close to the highest point in Vermont. Then I came to this rock. After the first big step it was just a walk up, really. It was way easier than a lot of what I had hauled myself up already.

BUT

There was nothing but empty air RIGHT behind me!

I couldn't do it. Not alone.





Some uber-fit guy (not so much younger than me) came along and blew past me while making a comment about how this spot was The Crux and how he didn't like to come this way in the winter and blah-blah-blah. In a flash he was up and out of sight.

WAIT!
GIVE ME A HAND!
SELFLESSNESS LOOKS GOOD ON YOUR KARMIC RESUME, BUDDY!

Oh well. Maybe next time.

This is the view from as far as I got.

That bare rock is the "adam's apple" at the far northern end of the ridge. The Hell Brook trail comes up on the other side of that.

I went back down the chin, hiked down the Long Trail, and met a nice fellow named Hiker Ed at the parking area who gave me a ride back to my car at the Hell Brook trail head.

What a great day.