Mount Mansfield, Vermont

Mount Mansfield is Vermont's highest peak, and one of the most highly accessible peaks in the state.  Those who are unable or unwilling to hike to the summit have the option of driving up the toll road or taking a gondola trip from Stowe. The mountain was named for the town of Mansfield, which has since dissolved and been replaced by Stowe (east), Underhill (west) and Cambridge (north), all of which can lay claim to at least a bit of this impressive mountain.

Mansfield got his stratigraphic start back in the Cambrian and Ordovician eras, about 500 million years ago, when the earth looked nothing like she does today, as sediments from an ancient sea slowly built their layers on the seafloor. Later, those sediments would be thrust inexorably skyward as the African plate was subducted by the American. Still later, the Taconic orogeny matamorphosed those sediments into basically the exposed rocks we see today.  Approaching the summit today, there are fantastic oyster shell patterns in the stone that give evidence to the forces at play in the orogenic process.  The Ancestral Appalachian mountains, of which Mansfield was only a single member, one rose far higher than the Rockies we know today.  In his book Centennial, historical novelist James Michener presents a lovely image of these ancient mountains before they eroded to their present state, soaring thousands of feet to brush the dome of the world.  Today, the Appalachians are only a small fragment of what they once were, their sediments constantly moved and rearranged by the constant forces of wind, water and the occasional glacial era.

What I call oyster shell rocks

These amazing and incomprehensibly slow forces have left us with a mountain whose series of four peaks are arranged roughly north-south. When viewed from the east, a lot of squinting and a little imagination resolves the profile of the mountain into the shape of a face staring up at the sky, with the Chin jutting at the northern end of the ridge.  As one of Vermont's few bald summits, the Nose is cluttered with a series of communications towers that mar photos but provide the region with cell, tv and radio coverage.  It's not as bad a tradeoff as some people might want to make it out to be.

Cantilever Rock

There are many trails to the summits of Mount Mansfield, the including Vermont's Long Trail, which traverses the full length of the peak ridge from Smuggler's Notch to the Chin, and Sunset Ridge, approached from the Underhill side in Underhill State Park.  Sunset Ridge is my favorite approach so far, as it is a moderately strenuous climb with plentiful scenic overlooks, and a spur trail to Cantilever Rock.  I've done portions of this trail in the winter, and had no trouble traversing on snowshoes.  Maple Ridge, on the other hand, proved a bit more difficult.  That is a steeper ascent, but provides a wonderful snowshoeing trek even if you don't have the gumption to make it all the way to the peak.  Starting from Underhill State Park, one can actually loop the whole summit of Mansfield, a trek of some 7.3 miles, according to my Runkeeper log. 

Starting on Sunset Ridge provides a good ascent to the highest peak (the Chin, 4,395 feet - a gain of some 2,400 feet in 2.4 miles). After that, there is some up and down along the peak, but mostly down, so the last five miles of this hike can be predominantly downhill.  I ran this route in just under five hours, which included several stops for pictures and one for lunch.

On the Underhill side of Mansfield, there are miles of cross-country and snowshoeing trails criss-crossing the flanks of the mountain. These are great for telemark skiing or just getting out and enjoying the winter.  From the Stowe side, there are ski resorts with lifts and trails, and Route 108 is closed in winter above the ski resorts, but that too provides great skiing and snowshoeing opportunities.  Thousands of people find recreation on and around Mount Mansfield throughout the year. Have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mansfield

What "Orogophilia" Means

Orogophilia is not a dirty word. I cobbled it together from the Greek root word for Mountain (oro) and love (philos). It is an obsession, a love affair, and the closest I will ever again come to religion. It is a way of life and a recreation, a series of technical skills woven together through trial and plenty of error, consummated by the simple act of walking. It has become the fabric of my existence, the breath of life and the elyxir of youth. Orogophilia is a lifelong story that starts in memory and ends in dream. It is, essentially, essential. 

When I was a teenager, I thought that hiking was pretty close to the stupidest thing a person could want to do, other than jogging. My poor mother tried to get me interested in it with a hike up Parkman Mountain in Maine, but I didn't enjoy the trip very much. It was muddy, cold, and the view wasn't anything I couldn't find pictures of on the Internet. What was the point of it all? And as for running – well, unless I was being chased by something rabid, there didn't seem to be much point to that, either. I'd grown up on a rural family farm and knew the worth of hard physical labor, but exercising for its own sake seemed like pure idiocy.

Flash forward a bit to my first backpacking trip when I was about 18, up Saddleback Mountain (also in Maine). I don't remember exactly what inspired the trip, but it was definitely tied to my first full-time office job. Previously, I'd been a waitress, a stable hand, a siding and window installer – and now I found myself trapped behind a desk collating files for hours on end. My brain was numb with boredom, and I had a growing intuition that something within me was suffocating and would only survive if I got out of the world of concrete and cars and flourescent lighting, and back into the world of trees and soil and sky. I was working in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the time, and my boyfriend had some knowledge of hiking and backpacking gear, but we couldn't afford to buy much. So we overloaded a couple of book bags with too much of the wrong gear, strapped on some old work boots, and struck out.

It wasn't long before things started to go badly for us. Saddleback is one of the more strenuous hikes in Maine, and nowadays I could recommend a half-dozen hikes off the top of my head that would have been better for first timers. Neither of us was in good enough shape to do the hike in good spirits, and we did not have the right gear. We didn't have an accurate map, and the weather was horrible. After a particularly bad stream crossing, we decided to cut the trip short and, thanks to that bad map, promptly got lost. It turned out that the ATV trail that looked on the map like it looped back to the parking lot actually continued for a very long ways before connecting to a main road nowhere near our car. Thankfully, a couple came by on ATVs and were gracious enough to give us a ride back, thus ending my first foray into the world of backpacking.

Despite everything about that trip, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I kept going over what I'd done wrong, how I could have done it better, and the thought that I had failed to reach the simple goal of walking up a hill kept eating at me. There was something else about it, too, something that struck a chord in me and set up a resonance that has grown like a reverse echo until it has come to dominate much of my world. I would think about it now and then, especially when I moved and had to dust off the tent and other bits of gear from that trip.

It wasn't until eight years later, after being married and divorced, after having been a couch potato smoking two packs a day, after years of dreary office work, after having shut off my mind and soul to accommodate a life that was slowly crushing me, after losing everything I had thought mattered in my world and having to start from scratch... it wasn't until then that I remembered the mountains. I was living with my mom and stepdad after my divorce, when we took in a dog who needed a temporary home. His name was Chance, and it somehow ended up being my task to take care of him. He was the most obnoxiously hyper, disobedient dog I'd ever met, but there was something about him that made me think maybe he just needed something he hadn't had before in his little life. I myself could hardly sit still at work, and spent hours every night pacing back and forth on the porch instead of sleeping. I felt caged, ready to come out of my skin at any moment. Chance and I were so obviously kindred spirits that I did for him what I needed for myself. I stopped putting him in a cage at night and let him take up most of my bed. I started walking him every day, working on basic obedience and learning to be patient and calm when he wasn't. Sure enough, both of us began to evolve. Walking with him took the place of pacing, and I started sleeping better. Focusing his energy allowed Chance to calm down when he was in the house, and through it all, we bonded deeply. I talked my parents into letting me keep him, and we walked together more and more, and then started jogging some as well. It wasn't long before I felt the call of paths that did not involve the narrow shoulder of busy roads, or houses every few hundred feet, or cars that can barely be bothered to pull out two feet around a pedestrian. I needed to get out of the scrutiny of people who are not used to seeing joggers. Chance needed to run, and I needed freedom. That's when we discovered the hills.

Tumbledown, Saddleback, Bald Pate, Old Speck, The Bigelows... whether we went for an afternoon or a whole weekend, Chance and I roamed through paths along streams and rivers, climbed to alpine lakes and breathed the deep, cool air that pools in the quiet valleys where there are no roads and no towns and no need to hold back, hold in, restrain or otherwise pretend to be well-behaved. My stepdad had been an avid backpaker in his younger days, and offered sage advice and the use of his old equipment. After just a few hikes, I dared to let my little buddy off his leash, despite dire warnings that he would not come back when called. I laughed aloud at his obvious joy as he flashed through the woods, chasing after squirrels or chipmunks or leaves in the breeze, his muscles rippling under his deep golden fur. Sometimes I would run with him, a girl and her dog moving or stopping as the mood suited. And he always came back to me, as I knew he would. Freedom and mountains and joy were now inextricably linked together, and I found healing and peace for the first time in a very long time.

Flash forward a couple more years. Chance has tragically passed away, but my love for the mountains and wild places has only grown. I've moved from Maine to Vermont, and taken up more hobbies that keep me out where the wild things are. I've taken to running more and more, despite the notable lack of rabid predators. This year, I will complete my first half-marathon, and I have my sights set on a full trail marathon and maybe one day one of those insane ultras that make people shake their head and question a runner's grasp on sanity.

I understand now what the point of it all is. When I set out to hike a mountain or to run a trail, I am not just peakbagging or logging miles, but embarking on a pilgrimage back to my center, back to the truth of what is essential to my being. To feel my whole body working as a unit, to feel muscles gathered under my skin, to surge up a hill and push through that final tenth of a mile to a summit... to reach a point faster than I have before, to dash through a stand of hemlocks imagining myself a deer on the hoof... to see what's around the next bend and over the next hill, to cling to the frame of a firetower I forced myself to climb because, dammit, I hiked all this way and am not going to let a little fear of heights stop me now... to stand perfectly still and hold my breath and hear nothing but the forest patiently growing... to sit beside a stream and listen to the sweet play of water and stone... to hold still enough to hear snowflakes drifting over the sleeping world... to ski down a hill steeper and faster than I've ever dared before... to always surpass the limits I set on myself, to be free and honest and alive. That is the point of it.

That is Orogophilia.

My Chance

Vermont's Toxic Mountain

I was decidedly startled when I told a friend I'd hiked Belvidere, one of my favorite hills, and he responded, "Oh, you hiked the Toxic Mountain?"  Having never heard such a negative word applied to a New England mountain, I immediately demanded more information. Politely, of course.

Mount Belvidere, situated in Lowell, Vermont, is built of the same basic orographic strata as Mansfield.  The whole region is rich in minerals, and some gems can even be found.  Belvidere happens to be a great place to find Vermont's state gem, grossular garnet.  It's also a great place to find other minerals, including asbestos... which leads to the term "toxic mountain."  In 1899, significant deposits of asbestos were discovered in the area, and a mine was quickly opened up.  For many years, the mine was quarried for this valuable material, which is used in brake lining, roofing and pipes due to its excellent heat resistant properties.  Mining peaked in the 1960's, until growing health and environmental concerns depressed the market demand for the mineral.  The mine officially closed in 1993, leaving behind the tailings and detritus common to any mining operation.  Efforts were made in 2007 and 2008 to curtail any environmental impact due to runoff from the tailings. While there is obvious erosion of the tailing piles, the Geological Society of America published in 2008 that there were no specific human health concerns as a direct result of the mining.  

Regardless of the waste piles north of Belvidere, this is one of my absolute favorite short hikes.  From the trailhead just north of Belvidere Pond on Route 118, hikers can access the Long Trail as well as the spur to Belvidere's peak.  The hike starts out with a charming meander through open forest and along the banks of a brook.  The trail then ascends more steeply with only tantalizing views snatched through the forest canopy.  At the summit is a firetower and a small bald patch of exposed area.  The best views are from the firetower, but for those unwilling to climb, there are still spectacular views to the north and west, encompassing Canada, the Adirondacks and Camel's Hump.  Guidebooks list the elevation at 3,360 feet, but my GPS clocked it at 3,284 feet, with a gain of 1,963 feet over about 2-1/2 miles.  There is also a longer 7.9 mile loop hike accessible from Tillotson Road in Lowell - more to come on that when I get around to exploring it. 

If you time your hike for sunset, there's a good chance that you can catch a spectacular display from the shores of Belvidere Pond:

An unexpected jewel

It is easy to dismiss the tag-end of autumn as that boring, wet period in between peak foliage and first snow. Especially in a year such as this, when there is cold rain and drizzle day after day and a glance out the window is entirely uninspiring. I've been waiting none too patiently for the rain to break for more than a few days at a time so that trails could dry out, but it seems it is not to be. So I decided to stop letting the rain stop me from doing what I wanted, laced up and struck out for the Cambridge Community trails yesterday.

I've been wanting to explore these trails since moving here a couple months ago, but between weather, other obligations and training for my first half-marathon, I hadn't done more than note the location of the trailheads.  Based on what little I could see from the road, I expected a tangle of soggy woodland tracks little better than game trails, much like any number of community “trail systems” back in my home state of Maine. In my terribly limited experience, small collections of trails that aren't even on any Web site that I could find after hours of searching generally are not well built or maintained. After all, if it's not on the Web, it's not worth bothering with, right? Sometimes I love being wrong.

Starting from the trailhead parking lot at the junction of Canyon and West Farm roads, I opted to start with West Farm Trail. It was not an auspicious beginning as I slogged and slipped my way up the short but steep hill that starts the trail off. It was no better than I'd expected, a waterlogged clay soil topped with wet leaves, a singletrack that is constantly being widened by people trying to find their way around the muddiest bits. But it seems that you can judge a trail by its trailhead no more than you can judge a book by its cover.

The rest of the trail was a series of branching roads, presumably old logging roads, with proper ditches and culverts. For several of the miles of trail that I ran, the corridor could easily accommodate horses, and the tread surface was clearly hard-packed under its current carpet of leaves. Several spots had simple log bridges in place, clarifying that these are real trails and not just a collection of wilderness tracks that the town didn't know what else to do with. At one point, the trail swings north and connects to Brewster River Gorge park, providing another access point and an opportunity to explore the covered bridge on Canyon Road.

The terrain on this trail was positively brilliant, from a trail running perspective. The topography included everything I wanted from short, steep hills to long relatively level stretches, and a few bigger climbs as well. The main trail is wide and clear of any brush or long grass, and side trails provided some brilliant dodge-and-weave along narrower tracks that follow the river a little tighter. Despite the last few weeks of fairly steady rain, there were only a few puddles on the trail, and those were easily negotiated without even having to break stride. And best of all, it is quiet. Though I started out with music playing, it wasn't long before the earbuds were tucked away. There was no traffic, no human noise beyond my own, and the rushing of the river kept a steady melody while the rain on leaves played counterpoint.

I can hardly wait for my next chance to go exploring in my new favorite backyard spot.