Tags » Rikert

With the dearth of fresh snow and thinning cover, I usually head for higher altitude terrain.  While pleasantly surprised by the conditions at the Rikert Ski Touring area last weekend, I had a hunch that the cover would be even better on Forest Service 59, which has the advantage of being just a little higher up the mountainside.  Skate skis are usually the best call in these conditions – it is hard to set the good deep tracks for optimal classic skiing when the cover is light.

Forest Service 59 is the dirt road which passes behind the Breadloaf Campus before climbing into the mountains and eventually looping into backroads Ripton.  While the road is fully accessible to 2WD vehicles in the summer, it is plowed for only the first mile or so, and never sanded during the winter.  Nonetheless, the lower segment makes for poor skiing due to the modest vehicular traffic it receives.  One can reach the well-covered upper reaches through the Rikert trail system, however.  On this day, I warmed up with an easy partial loop on the Batell Trail.  After the short descent on this well-travelled trail, take a hard right up the short climb onto Fletcher, and another right turn shortly thereafter onto Gilman.  After crossing FS 59 at this point, follow Gilman for a kilometer or so, until it rejoins FS 59 higher up.  Here, take a left turn onto 59, but if the cover is thin, don’t worry about it, as this only lasts for a hundred yards or so.  You will immediately reach a sign indicating the end of winter maintenance for motorized vehicles (other than snowmobiles), and this is where the skating gets great.

This road is maintained for snowmobile travel for many miles, and I have found that the groomer which they use for these machines makes for a near perfect ski skating surface.  Thanks once again to VAST and the snowmobilers who support it!  You can also ski here on classic skis, or course, but the wide road, lack of tracks, and frankly, lack of snowmobiles, makes a long easy skate most appealing.

At this point, you can pretty much go as far as you want.  The road climbs gradually, but relentlessly for about 10-15 min until you reach the height of land.  From this point on, the skiing is very easy, with a few short descents and climbs, and is a great place to really stretch out your stride and go for great gliding.  I found this trail very reminiscent of much of the course for the Gatineau 55, a ski marathon on the Worldloppet tour which I sort of competed in many years ago.   No time for a marathon today, so for my much shorter ski I arbitrarily chose  to turn around after a few miles at the Sawmill Clearing, which also serves as the trailhead for the easy climb up to Breadloaf Mountain.  Perhaps I will carry my snowshoes on my back another day to add this climb to the short ski tour.

While you know you are going uphill most of the way out, you don’t realize how much you have climbed until your return – I was amazed to see that my return took barely half the time of my trip out.  Cruising back to the touring center by pretty much the same route made this a 13 km (8 mile) trip – just right for a busy Saturday when I had other family needs to attend to.

Altitude Proflie

After my last post on the Blueberry Hill ski touring area, I had to follow up with a post describing a favorite loop at my home in the mountains, the Rikert Ski touring center on the Breadloaf Campus.  I have purchased a season’s pass here pretty much every winter since I moved to Vt, and I can’t say enough good things about the place and the people who run it, so I won’t!  The Rikert area has many kilometers of great trails, but has a compact trail layout, so I am going to describe a route which includes some of their lesser known trails, and some less maintained sections of forest service land outside the ski area boundaries.  This loop includes some perfectly manicured terrain, skier-packed side trails, and a short section on Forest Service 59, an unplowed dirt road which is maintained by VAST (Vermont Area Snow Travellers, aka Snowmobilers).

Breadloaf Inn - Rikert Ski Touring Center

Starting at the touring center, take the trail descending directly into the woods towards Breadloaf Mountain.  This trail is labelled as the “first loop”  as it is the start of the 7.5 Km loop used by the Middlebury College Ski Team for the winter carnival races.  Follow this trail as it makes a quick climb, short descent and veers right for another short climb.  Go straight on Holland, which continues the gradual climb.  A short distance after topping out on Holland, you will see an ungroomed but usually well skied trail descending to the right.  This trail is usually referred to as “Brown Gate”.  There are a few springs in this section of trail, so watch out for a few bare spots.  An opening in the forest to the right marks the beginning of a series of beaver ponds.  The trail eventually makes a sharp right to a bridge which crosses over the outlet of the beaver ponds, but if the little buggers have been recently active, the bridge is sometimes under the ice.  From here it is about . 75 Km of climbing until you reach the brown gate which gives the trail its name, where the ski trail system meets FS 59.  If you are reading this, and wonder how on earth you will ever follow these instructions, just remember (as the blogger furrows his brow and does his best Yoda imitation) No wrong way, there is, only new ways.  Hmmmmmm.

Take a left here on the VAST-maintained trail.  I rarely see snowmobilers here, and when I do, I step aside, wave pleasantly, and thank them, as it is their dues which keeps the trail maintained.  I am looking forward, however, to the extinction of the smoky and loud 2-stroke machines and their eventual replacement with quieter and less noxious 4-stroke engined snowmobiles.  Another Km or so of easy climbing brings you to the height of land, where the trail takes a soft left turn, and starts to descend.  Keep your eyes open for a tighter trail descending to the left.  You will recognize it when you see a no snowmobiling sign on a trail frequently well packed by snowmobiles.  The next few Km are a long fun descent which eventually bring you back into the outer fringes of the Rikert trail system.  There is a gorgeous section paralleling the Middle Branch River.  Shortly after you cross the river on a major bridge, there is a hard left up a short steep hill.  Head up this, and then take the right fork when the trail splits again.  You may notice a wooden sign pointing to Breadloaf, but this is easy to miss as it is in need of a paint job.  Stay on this trail, which eventually passes through a pine forest before emerging in a clearing adjacent to the Robert Frost Cabin.

Robert Frost Cabin

Frost spent the summer and fall here every year from 1939 until his death in 1963.  I have noted that many locations around New England lay claim to Robert Frost, although “Robert Frost lived here” historical markers are not quite as common as “George Washington slept here” seems to be in the Mid-Atlantic states!  The large white farmhouse below is the Homer Noble Farm, which made the news two years ago, when it was vandalized by a large group of high school-aged kids drinking beer.  The New York Times article discussing this sad incident can be found at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28land.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

This sobering thought aside, the bluebird skies and blue kick wax conditions made for yet another ahhhhhhh… moment on a perfect day.  From this point on, just follow the obvious trails back to the central sections of the ski touring area, and kick it in back to the touring center.

First tracks on corduroy

The total distance on this loop was 13 Km, with a 700 ft altitude difference between the highest and lowest points. You will notice, I am giving all distances in Km now.  This is so that I can maintain credibility in the nordic skiing world, where apparently English system measurement is verboten.

Google Earth Projection

Altitude