Vermont Part 4: The First Day of Autumn as Seen from the Top of a Mountain

9/22/12:  THE FIRST DAY OF AUTUMN AS SEEN FROM THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN

We’re not riding today.  

The winds are too strong.  Instead we take a five minute drive south to the other side of the island for a quick and gusty look at Allen Point, during which my right hearing aid battery dies.  I beg for a quick stop back at the house for a battery swap.

 

This is where the ferry used to come through.

From here it’s off to Stowe to drive up a mountain.  We don’t really have a plan, other than to drive as far up a ski slope as we can to see what we can see.  First we come across a resort, huge and imposing in front of an array of trails cut into the mountainside. 

A couple of workers in the visitor center give us advice: drive up to Smuggler’s Notch first; then, turn around and drive up the Toll Road.  From there, take the mile-long trail up to the summit of Mount Mansfield.

So that’s what we do.

The road to Smuggler’s Notch is narrow, winding, and steep.  There is a collective groan from our car full of cyclists every time we round a bend onto a hairpin turn.

At the Toll Road we are given a CD to listen to.  We get a history of this road, a former carriage road, as we ascend.  Blacktop has given way to dirt.  “She didn’t tell us about this!”  Larry laments.  At the top, the parking lot is nearly full.

 

The trail is across rock.  At first we are enveloped by balsam fir.  Lynne and I inhale deeply.  “Mmmmmm.”

The trees get shorter.  Now we’re following white blazes painted on open rock.  A line of twine on either side keeps us on the trail and off the lichen and knee-high trees.  The wind whips in from the edge of the mountain, pushing us forward, howling into my hearing aids.  I want to turn them off, to put them in my pocket, but I have nothing safe to put them in, and, besides, we’re moving along at a fair clip.

I stop every so often for a picture.  The view doesn’t change much as we ascend.  We are up around 4000 feet.  Lake Champlain is in the far distance.  I can’t distinguish it from the sky and haze on the horizon.  Distant mountains look blue.  The ground far below is brown.

We’re ascending now.  Larry, in a pair of old boat shoes, is beginning to lose his footing.  I stay behind him just in case he topples, which he almost does once.

Then the trail leads downhill sharply.

We’re using our hands, putting our feet in cracks between the rocks.  I dare not look anywhere but down.  To look left or forward would make me dizzy.  As much to calm Larry as to calm myself, I remember a line from a movie, a quote from Jack Kerouac:  “You can’t fall off a mountain.”

The path evens out again.  Then we climb, reaching a rise close to the summit.  Clouds blow in at eye level.  I sit down to rest and take pictures.  Tom zooms in on a hiker standing on a ledge in the distance.

Larry breaks out a Power Bar and shares it.  We look up to the summit, easily just a few minutes away.  Back where we came from the sky is clouding up.  We decide that this is good enough.

Descending, I walk in front of Larry so he can watch where I’ve stepped.  I’m pretty good at rock-hopping.  I misstep once in a while, though.  “Don’t do that,” I tell him, not looking back.  “I won’t,” he answers.  This routine is repeated more than once.

 The parking lot is only slightly less crowded when we return.  “Lunch, I think,” I suggest.

We drive back to Stowe, grab cheap eats at a sandwich shop (out of anything veggie that I’d want to eat, so I pick at a scone and drink milk from a carton), and wander through a shop full of tacky Vermont memorabilia.  It’s worth it, though, because, among the jams and relishes open for sampling, Cheryl has found cinnamon raisin peanut butter.  She leads me to it, crackers in hand.  Lunch.  But for $8.50 a jar, there’s no way we’re taking it home.  

I’ve found another stuffed moose and some local cheese to take home. 

 
Lynne buys a bag of horehound candy, which three of us try, unsure what, exactly, it tastes like.  Caramel or maple syrup or root beer, but not quite any of those.  Larry and Cheryl are nursing the coffees they’d bought at the sandwich shop.  

On to the Ben and Jerry’s factory.  Fortunately, for those of us who aren’t really interested in the tour, no ice cream is being made today, so Larry and Tom decide against it.  We get into the long line for ice cream instead.  I find a smoothie made with frozen Greek yogurt.  It tastes like frozen yogurt used to taste 30 years ago, before people figured out how to make it not taste like yogurt.

As we walk to the car, the rain begins.  It’s coming down steadily as we cross onto South Hero Island.  The wind has died down.  We put in dinner orders at the same pizza shop as two nights ago (a real hole in the wall, a one-woman operation, no seating, antique typewriters, photographs of a Florida swamp, cash only). 

 The storm moves out.

 

Between bouts of packing and cleaning, we talk about leading bike rides and other deep-in-the-weeds, we’ve-been-FreeWheelers-forever subjects that would make an outsider’s ears bleed.  I’m here in a cabin at the edge of a lake, with bikers I’ve known for over a decade, talking Club shop. I suppose that makes me an Old Timer.

Tomorrow we’ll head back home in the morning, stopping in Saratoga Springs to visit a former FreeWheeler whom Cheryl and Tom have known for years.  I don’t remember him much, but I do remember his email address, even though I probably never used it.  Cheryl will be spending the night there.  Tom is taking me home.

It’s time for me to look over today’s pictures and then pack up this computer.  I have to make everything fit into the cab of Tom’s truck.  Some stuffed mooses might get squished during shipment.