summer in Vermont, day one
Aug. 18th, 2010 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerphotos from my hike up and down Mt Philo
I flew up on Thursday, getting to BWI just a few minutes too late to check my bag at the counter. This occasioned me some little concern, and this meant I had to carry it (and its contents, which were supposed to go in the hold) through security. Luckily, TSA did not detect my Leatherman tool or my contraband toothpaste, though they did examine the coffee stains on the outer shell of my laptop for a while before returning it to me.
Arriving in VT, I found it disappointingly not much different from MD in terms of heat and humidity (it was mildly unpleasant at home). In VT, however, people seemed to feel this was a remarkable heatwave, so I was reassured. :-) I collected my rental car (paying, as always, too much because I never check to make sure my insurance covers me) and drove through the outskirts of Burlington and South Burlington to Shelburne, stopping along the way to buy a road map and some Gatorade. I halted at Village Wine and Coffee to use their WiFi and get come java.
I stopped again on my way to Vergennes, where I was staying, to visit Mount Philo. Chris and Mel had pointed it out to me when I stayed with them, but dismissed its diminutive 968 foot summit contemptuously as "Philo Nubbin". I can only guess this is because they never had occasion to try the park's recommended way of exploring the crag, which is to drive to the top and then hike down (and consequently back up again). This was my first experience of Vermonters' tendency to lay out hiking trails in a style that I imagine is inspired perhaps by the chamois. Instead of the leisurely switchbacks I have grown accustomed to in Maryland, they see a near-vertical ascent and think, "Why waste time with all that back and forth? Why not just go straight up? Or, as the case may be, down?"
As a result, I got to the bottom with the dread knowledge that, as exhausting as the careful, rock- and tree-root-avoiding descent had been, it would be nothing to the ordeal of climbing back *up* the trail. And all, of course, without my hiking poles; I thought of them longingly as I struggled back up, taking ever more frequent stops for air.
I finally made it back to my car (having been lapped by a man who was *running* up the road and passed me coming back down the trial as I reached the top). I was very glad of the last of the Gatorade I had gotten earlier. I drove back down, rolling down the windows and drinking in the fresh air that billowed in as I drove. It was still warm, but a good deal of the humidity that had greeted me had dissipated. I got to my lodging (the Emerson Guest House in Vergennes, which I recommend highly), cleaned up, and went in search of dinner.
This I eventually found at the curiously named Bar Antidote, where I had a glass or two of fine Vermont ale and a delicious burger. The staff was friendly and attentive without being smothering, and the house was full of people and talk without being so loud one couldn't enjoy it. I wandered around town a little and then headed back to my B&B for a sound sleep.
Next: A wrong turn takes me to New York!
I flew up on Thursday, getting to BWI just a few minutes too late to check my bag at the counter. This occasioned me some little concern, and this meant I had to carry it (and its contents, which were supposed to go in the hold) through security. Luckily, TSA did not detect my Leatherman tool or my contraband toothpaste, though they did examine the coffee stains on the outer shell of my laptop for a while before returning it to me.
Arriving in VT, I found it disappointingly not much different from MD in terms of heat and humidity (it was mildly unpleasant at home). In VT, however, people seemed to feel this was a remarkable heatwave, so I was reassured. :-) I collected my rental car (paying, as always, too much because I never check to make sure my insurance covers me) and drove through the outskirts of Burlington and South Burlington to Shelburne, stopping along the way to buy a road map and some Gatorade. I halted at Village Wine and Coffee to use their WiFi and get come java.
I stopped again on my way to Vergennes, where I was staying, to visit Mount Philo. Chris and Mel had pointed it out to me when I stayed with them, but dismissed its diminutive 968 foot summit contemptuously as "Philo Nubbin". I can only guess this is because they never had occasion to try the park's recommended way of exploring the crag, which is to drive to the top and then hike down (and consequently back up again). This was my first experience of Vermonters' tendency to lay out hiking trails in a style that I imagine is inspired perhaps by the chamois. Instead of the leisurely switchbacks I have grown accustomed to in Maryland, they see a near-vertical ascent and think, "Why waste time with all that back and forth? Why not just go straight up? Or, as the case may be, down?"
As a result, I got to the bottom with the dread knowledge that, as exhausting as the careful, rock- and tree-root-avoiding descent had been, it would be nothing to the ordeal of climbing back *up* the trail. And all, of course, without my hiking poles; I thought of them longingly as I struggled back up, taking ever more frequent stops for air.
I finally made it back to my car (having been lapped by a man who was *running* up the road and passed me coming back down the trial as I reached the top). I was very glad of the last of the Gatorade I had gotten earlier. I drove back down, rolling down the windows and drinking in the fresh air that billowed in as I drove. It was still warm, but a good deal of the humidity that had greeted me had dissipated. I got to my lodging (the Emerson Guest House in Vergennes, which I recommend highly), cleaned up, and went in search of dinner.
This I eventually found at the curiously named Bar Antidote, where I had a glass or two of fine Vermont ale and a delicious burger. The staff was friendly and attentive without being smothering, and the house was full of people and talk without being so loud one couldn't enjoy it. I wandered around town a little and then headed back to my B&B for a sound sleep.
Next: A wrong turn takes me to New York!
