A climb up Mt. Mansfield, Vermont — Part 2

By Scott Bury

July, 2012

This post continues the previous one, where the author and his son, Super Nicolas, climbed Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield, on foot from the very bottom to the very top.

In Part 2, we try to climb down. As anyone who's climbed knows, coming down is often harder than climbing up.

The wind up here is frigid, but after the hard work of the climb up, it's refreshing and we don't bother putting on our long pants or sweat-shirts.

At the top of the Cliff Trail, we have to make a decision: do we attempt this strenuous climb down this DDD trail, back over the section with the loops driven into the smooth rocks and back through the Cave of Winds with its bottomless holes to jump over, to get to the gondola which closes in 19 minutes? If we miss the last gondola, our options down are:

• back the way we came originally, retracing the rest of the extremely difficult Cliff Trail, up the ladders, along the ledges and through the tunnels
• climb up through the Cave of Winds yet again, over the holes, hike up again over the smooth rocks and up the narrow steps back to the Long Trail, and then make a long slog down the Toll Road.

Climbing DOWN through the
Cave of the Winds was not an
inviting prospect.

We elect not to take a chance on getting to the gondola in 19 minutes. It's going to be long enough without having to double the Cliff Trail needlessly. The Long Trail to parking lot A at the Visitor's Center is easy, and only takes a few minutes.

We must look tired when we get there — or at least, I must — because a family in a mini-van offers us a ride down. We accept.

The driver, Mike, explains that a friend has let him borrow his 1990 Honda Odyssey for the summer. The side doors don't work anymore, so the whole family — his brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece — climb in the front doors and over the seats to sit in the back. Nicolas and I follow, and sit on the floor, squeezed between coolers and backpacks. We can't see very well.

The toll road is very long, with a lot of switchbacks, and it seems even longer when you cannot see. And the road is quite steep.

After a while, Mike's brother, sitting behind me, advises him to use the brakes rather than low gear to go downhill "because it's cheaper to replace brake pads than a transmission."  Soon, the stink of overheated transmission oil is replaced by the much worse smell of burning brake pads.

The smell gets worse as we try to distract ourselves by exchanging information about where we’re from, our vacations and other small talk. But about half-way down the mountain, Sandra, in the back of three rows of seats, tells Mike to pull over. “The fumes are really building up back here,” she says. “And we can’t open the back window.” I look back: one of the teenagers, sitting in the cargo area, looks like she’s about to faint.

Mike pulls over where the road is a little wider. We clamber out and suck in as much clean air as we can. I hold my hand 15 centimetres from the rear fender to feel the heat radiating from the overworked brakes.

The youngest teenager wobbles around for a minute, woozy from the fumes of burning brake pads, then twists her ankle. Fortunately, Sandra, her aunt, is a registered nurse. Eventually, with the fumes dissipated and the ankle wrapped, we climb back into the minivan for the remainder of the trip.

Fortunately, we’re not far from the bottom at this point, and the brakes and transmission have a much easier time. Mike drives us to the parking lot at the bottom of the chairlift where we left our car. We say thank you and wish our short-term companions well.

As we watch the minivan drive back down Mountain Road toward Stowe, I am surprised not to see smoke coming out of it.

“So, what was more adventurous?” I ask Super Nicolas. “The climb up, or the drive down in the burning minivan?”

Nic laughs. “The trip down was more dangerous.”

From the peak, some people say you can see the lights of Montreal
on a clear night.

Scott Bury (right) is an author, editor and journalist based in Ottawa, Canada. His books include The Bones of the Earth and One Shade of Red. Visit his website, Written Words, and follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.
Super Nicolas is a geologist and outdoorsman. Happy birthday, Super Nicolas!

1,000 metres up: A hike on Mt. Mansfield

By Scott Bury 

Vermont's Long Trail stretches from the Canadian border, over the top ridge of Mt. Mansfield, over several other Green Mountains, all the way to the Massachusetts border and connects with the Appalachian Trail system.

Our summer vacation in 2012 was to Stowe, Vermont, home of the nauseatingly famous Von Trapps, and nestled on the southern slopes of Mount Mansfield. From Stowe, the crest of this mountain looks like the elongated profile of a face, with a distinctive forehead, nose, chin (the summit) and Adam's apple, plus two other rises that could be lips.

 

I park at the bottom of the gondolas, and then Super Nicolas and I take the Haselton Trail, which is rated D for difficult. It's very pleasant, although quite steep as it parallels the ski runs. Most of the lower part is under trees, along hogs-back ridges or winding across the slope. At several places, it crosses little mountain streams, allowing pleasant places to rest. On that hot summer day, most of the morning is cool under the trees.

The top half of the trail becomes ski runs in the winter, so they're wide-open and exposed to the sun. However, because they’re around 3,000 feet above sea level, the conditions are breezy.

An inviting spot to cool your dogs.

The Haselton Trail ends at the top of the Toll Road. We still have to hike up to the Visitor's Center, which is at the base of the Nose. The Nose also has a number of antennae sticking up out of it.

Apparently, there used to be a luxury hotel here, and one of the guests’ favourite activities was to sit on the patio, sip coffee and watch crazy people scale the cliffs. But the hotel was torn down in the 50s. The Visitor's Center today has only a few brochures and posters of wildlife. There's no running water, and the only bathrooms are two por-to-lets.

From there, Super Nicolas and I take the Cliff Trail toward the summit. According to Wikipedia, the Cliff Trail is rated DDD. It must stand for "so Difficult, Don't even try this, Dummy."

The views as you ascend, especially from the ski runs, are spectacular. Here, we look east across the Green Mountains.

The Cliff Trail presents challenges for the inexperienced climber. There are places where you have to turn around and climb up or down using your hands as well as feet.

To get through some of the
tunnels, you have to take
off your backpacks.

There are caves or tunnels that require you to take off your backpack and crawl on your hands and knees to get through. And there are three or four study ladders placed by the Green Mountains hiking club.

Watch out for all the moose poop. Sometimes it seems like the Cliff Trail should be called the Mooses' Latrine.

The Cave of the Winds is near the northern end of the trail. It's actually not a cave, but more of a place where a sheet of rock has split off from the main cliff face. There are bottomless holes that you have to jump over. When I went through, behind me was a family that got onto the last part of the Cliff Trail after riding up the ski gondola. I turned and pulled a 12-year-old boy over the last hole.

Entrance to the Cave of the Winds.

The last part of the Cliff Trail is a steep climb up rocks; the state or the hiking club or whoever maintains the trail has actually put iron loops into the rocks to help you climb over them. 

When we finally get back to the Long Trail that winds more or less directly to the summit, I am panting and sweating. Thankfully, the Long Trail from here is easy: a slow, more or less steady climb up to the Chin.

Up this high, the trees are stunted. Signs advise you that the vegetation is delicate alpine/arctic tundra type, and urge visitors to "Take the Rock Walk" and stay off the plant life. The state has laid out string, looped around rocks, to guide your footsteps.

We walk up, and up, and up, toward what we both think is the peak. But when we get there, we realize it was an illusion: after a brief, shallow dip, the path rises again to the REAL summit.

Which one is the REAL summit? The farthest
one, of course.

I sit beside a woman in a pink hoodie. "Discouraging, isn't it? I thought this was the top, too. Then I saw that." she says, pointing to the trail that leads to the peak, a couple of hundred metres long.

I look at my watch. It is now 3:40, We had planned to ride the gondola down, but it closes at 4:30 "We've already come this far," says Nicolas.

"Already," I think. We started climbing the mountain before 11:00 a.m.

We make that last 200 metres or so fairly quickly and easily. Finally, we're looking at a brass disk set into the rock, marking the highest point in Vermont. The view is stunning. Lake Champlain to the west, the Camel's Hump to the south, green folds of Vermont to the east. Someone else at the top says that on a clear night, you can see the lights of Montreal in the north.

But we don't have much time to admire the view if we want to take the gondola. After taking it in, we hitch up our packs and begin the long walk down. 

Super Nicolas and I at the top of Vermont.

Scott Bury (right) is an author, editor and journalist based in Ottawa, Canada. His books include The Bones of the Earth and One Shade of Red. Visit his website, Written Words, and follow him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.
Super Nicolas is a geologist and outdoorsman.

When a trip becomes a blog becomes an Ebook

WGT founder Sigrun Buckley checks in at the mid-point of her sabbatical.

Greetings from Amsterdam from what I vaingloriously call our European Tour. As many of you are aware, hubby and I embark on multi-home swaps, exchanging homes with likewise adventurous travelers who have more dash than cash. How else could you afford to stay in Europe for a month or two?

Maybe you are even following my blog: www.Intrepidhomeswapping.blogspot.com. It’s worth a look just for the number of beautiful snapshots of each area. Then, of course, there are little stories and info. 

I started recording our trips on this travel blog and the first eBook was born. We’re now into Season 3.

Otherwise we would be traveling in style and reside in a Grand Hotel on nice côte or on padded loungers of a fashionable resort. Maybe even a cruise around the world.

We’re halfway through this year’s summer trip, having stayed in the former West German capital Bonn first, currently looking at sunsets or rainy night skies in Amsterdam and are almost getting ready for our last stop of three weeks in Swabenia, near the Black Forest.

The weather gods meant it very well with us this year, but too much of a good thing — without air-conditioning — can become tedious after a while, too. With the temperature at 33 degrees Celsius today, I hate to leave the house. A jump into the lake doesn’t have as much appeal to us as it does to the natives. How healthy can this murky brown liquid really be with ducks and swans around, the odd pile of flotsam that serves as nests for feathery friends, and spiders. We even spotted water rats, which probably have to be expected when you live on the water.

We enjoyed the experience of a different life and space — mostly the lack thereof, however — on a houseboat, even though we could have done without the mould in the fridge, some rotten floorboards that send off too much of an unpleasant whiff to our nostrils. Definitely the fleas were de trop! Yes, fleas. Three big flea spray cans later, the critters were alive and still hungrily biting.

I hear you say “Well, I would never entertain the thought of having strangers in my house.” But honestly, it’s not so different whether you have strangers sleep in your bedroom or you’re sleeping in a hotel.

And until now, we never encountered stuff this bad. This is our first swap among five that turned out undesirable. We’re very hopeful about our next prospect.

In a week’s time, all of this will remain a funny incident in our travel chest, a mere episode that might make it into a story. By then I will describe the situation in more detail, because by then our exchange partners will have vacated our precious flea-free home in Florida.

Thanks to you, readers and contributors whose loyalty keeps us going. And a very big thank you, of course, to the current man in charge, our dear friend Scott Bury.

Sigrun Buckley

On FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Intrepid-Home-Swapping-Insider-Secrets-for-Successful-Home-Swaps/144338212328193

On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Intrepid-Swapping--Successful-Homeswapping-ebook/dp/B005N0N3CO/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375458727&sr=1-4

"The change will do you good"

 

Whenever I picked up the Irish Times at my local news agent’s, the owner would smirk, handing me some pennies back. “Here’s your change…The change will do you good!”
How about you? Are you afraid of change or do you welcome it?
Change affects all parts of life: political change, climate change, job changes; fashion & lifestyle are all subject to change; women know this because they go “through the change.” Some changes we humans have no control over—only our attitude towards it.
Some people hate change because of the uncertainty involved. Some find it easier to deal with the devil they know. The opposite isn’t desirable to me: being stuck in a rut, a predictable outcome, no change for the better? No thanks!
However this is not meant to be a philosophical treatise.  You may have noticed some changes to this website. Due to a two-month sabbatical that is taking me on another home swapping trip to Europe to see my family and hopefully finish my book, Scott Bury will mind the shop. He is a very experienced editor, published author and return contributor who kindly agreed to keep this website afloat in my absence. Now you can follow us on @WritersGT. Submissions will go to his email address for the time being. There have been some changes in layout.
What will not change is our mission statement to publish excellent content by bloggers and writers from around the world while providing a platform to highlight your work. The goal of WGT has been to offer exposure to readers through a growing network of dedicated authors who promote each other’s work. The more…the merrier: So tweet and network away to your heart’s content!
We all love comments! Don't hesitate to give us some feedback. Everybody needs encouragement!
Thanks to everybody contributing here and making this site a success. Wishing you a productive and safe summer,  I’m only an email away on the other side of the pond. Cheers!
Siggy Buckley 

What's on your bucket list?

I've made an interesting, albeit maybe obvious, observation. As we get older, we become more like our parents/grandparents.

I'm talking about how we view our mortality. Think about it. Remember how your parents talked about their ailments, doctor's appointments and obituaries? As a kid, I totally never got it. Now, enjoying the last half of my life, I see why they did that. It's surprising how much your mind still feels twenty-five but your body feels ancient. When did that happen? I could have sworn I felt much younger yesterday. Where has the time gone?

In this wake of our mortality some of us stop and look around us. What have me missed? We have friends passing all around us. Have we done all the things we thought we'd do? Oh, some of us have gained maturity (I said some - no laughing) and wisdom (I fit better there). But have we accomplished the things we thought we would?

I did a survey on Facebook. What's on your bucket list? Some of the answers I received I expected, some were surprising. The most common item on the list was some kind of adventure. Whether it be sailing on a full-rig ship, skydiving (most common), walk the Great Wall of China or joining the mile-high club, adventure was the most common answer.

                                                               

Why is that? Are we too cautious in our everyday life? Are we saving that big moment for the day we're told we only have six months to live? Reality is life is filled with work, family and bills that need to be paid. Adventure isn't a priority. We have been taught that responsibility out weighs fun. These dreams get put on a back-burner. Once we have more money, less responsibility, we'll have more time to follow through with the dreams. Hopefully, we'll have six weeks notice and the health to do it.

The next most common was travel. Reasons, I'm sure, are the same as adventure. I know I'd love to go to Scotland but the money just isn't available. Now if I played the lotto I might have a chance. Other common destinations were Disney World, Australia, and seeing all fifty states.

Some other bucket list items were having a novel on the best sellers list, finding a soul mate, and losing weight. Are any of these impossible? No! And, definitely, shouldn't be put off to the last ticking minute.

What's my message here? Just because we age doesn't mean we aren't capable of great things. Why wait until we are too old to enjoy our bucket list? Start planning today to fulfill that list! Live a full, exciting life - if that's what you're looking for. Don't put it off...you may never get another chance.  

 

 Linda Bolton 

Amazon http://ow.ly/hENaT

www.lindabolton.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/lindaboltonauthor

http://www.facebook.com/linda.bowersbolton

www.twitter.com/!#/lindalou42

Mini Occupy

It’s been quite awhile since I stood on a street corner waving a sign, ingesting car fumes, and encouraging people to honk at me.  But the latest round of Occupy events attracted me.  I live in a really laid-back community, so the crowd that gathered together on Thursday in solidarity with other Occupy events was small, but enthusiastic.  Many participants were seniors from my retirement community.  One man had a wonderfully bright Santa hat to catch the attention of  passing cars.
We held up U.S. flags, and signs  like, “If you get rid of the middle class, who will buy your stuff?”  It’s doubtful that anyone in the cars could read the signs, but it made for a colorful waving display.  People chanted “We are the 99.  You are the 99″ and other catchy phrases that kept us energized.
We were too small to attract much media attention, but there was one man there with impressive camera equipment, and one young man walking around making a video that is undoubtedly already somewhere amidst the mass of YouTube offerings.  I didn’t see any police, but there were two security guards in front of a nearby restaurant.
Some in their cars sternly looked away from us while stopped at the long light, while others gave us thumbs up, waves, and honks.  We particularly loved hearing the strong blasts of trucks, buses, even a moving van.  The one I liked best was a driver who loudly played a rousing Souza march that got me dancing.  As I said, it was a looong light at that major intersection.
While the news of other Occupy events was of arrests, violent confrontations, and forcible dismantling of the tent cities, our little Occupy was more like a celebration of the right to gather on a street corner and demonstrate our frustration and extreme disappointment with the blatant corruption and greed that continues to overburden 99% of our country’s residents, forcing American history to a new low — of our own making.
Leaderless, grassroots movements can end up going in many directions — to extinction or toward accomplishing something meaningful.  I’m glad to be a small part of what it is now, with some hope for what it may accomplish in the future.   Fortunately, there are examples from the 1960s and 1970s where persistence, hard work, and a noisy minority forced change.
I ended my evening catching an old movie on tv that was eerily relevant to why I was on the street corner today.  The movie was “Presumed Innocent” with Harrison Ford.  His young face, old computer, and the low level of forensic investigation showed how old the picture was.   It was a murder mystery that cleverly exposed many levels to dwell on.  An innocent man was proven innocent, not because he was innocent, but because there were many nasty secrets to keep to protect an elected official, a corrupt judge, inept police, a wife whose devotion to her family caused her to commit murder, and a husband who protected the mother of his son.  In the end, no one could feel good about the web of tragedy they had spun.
At one point in the movie, Harrison’s boss says, “You’re still hanging on to the shreds of your ideals.”  Harrison replies, “The shreds of my ideals are all I have left.”  By the end of the movie, he had let go of even those shreds.  I wonder what shreds of ideals I have left.
Suellen Zima is the President of the Laguna Beach Chapter of the National League of American Pen Women. Her travel website is called Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird.Suellen recently got interested and involved in Occupy movement.