Tag Archives: Ripton

Trailrunners After Dark

Let’s face it – the days ARE getting shorter, so sometimes, it is tough to find the time to go for a run during the daytime.  The easy solution to this, of course, is the purchase of a headlamp and reflective clothing, and warm clothes.  I have also blogged from time to time about the pleasures of running on packed snowmobile trails while wearing my “microspikes”, the easy slip-on shoe device which gives just the right amount of grip for packed trails.  With both of these winter running tricks in mind, I had the inspiration to combine them both, on my beloved cross country ski trails at the Rikert Ski Touring area in Ripton.  I have been reticent about after dark running on roads, since my nasty fall on a patch of ice two years ago, but I realized that packed ski trails, especially with the tail end of the early season snows still on the trails, would make for a safe, fun run, and a new experience.  The one thing that would not be safe, however, is running in the woods alone at night, so I posted my hairbrained idea for some of my running friends on the Middlebury Running Group facebook page, and not surprisingly, some of them actually agreed with my suggestion!

So, we met up in the parking lot at Rikert at 5:30 on a mid-week evening, and other than a few lights on in and around the Touring Center lobby and a few spotlights from the barn, the parking lot was dark, as a group of us gathered to begin the run.  It was a little on the chilly side, in the low 20’s, but we knew that once we got running, we would warm up nicely.  So, we slipped on our microspikes, turned on our headlamps, and headed across the field to the Battell trail entrance.  I am including a trail map, so that those who are not as familiar with the area can see where we went!  The footing, as expected, was just fine, given our preparations, although I would recommend a slower than normal running pace, as even with the headlamps, we had to be careful about where we stepped – if for no other reason than that the wonderful early season snows hit before the small streams and wet spots crossing the trail had not yet frozen up.   The woods were beautiful under the faint glow of our headlamps, and were far more silent than they are during the day, when the scurry of small animals and birds makes for a little background ambience.  A picture almost caught the mood.

View from the trail

 

 

And of course, there is not much to see in this photo – it was dark! Continuing around the Battell loop ( a little over a mile long) we looped back to the field, and then took the right turn up the Tormondsen Racing Trail, covered by snowmaking, made for even better footing. The Rikert area does not have much in the way of altitude between the base and the hills, but they do an excellent job of snaking the compact trail system up and down the side of these hills, keeping the skiing appropriately challenging. So, looking to get a little more climbing in, I led the group up past the Myhre Cabin, which I recently learned is still privately owned, up towards the Frost Trail. Despite the fact that the Frost Trail is higher on the hillside, it needed more snow and/or more cold to cover the streams, so we had to be even more careful about our footing, until we arrived at the high point of the run, the Burgin Lodge, which was built to give members of the Middlebury College community a quiet place in the woods to spend the night – with access by reservation only.   There was nobody there, so the stone cairns, and then the cabin itself loomed spookily in the VERY dim light of our headlamps.

The Spooky Cairn

Yeah, I know, the picture is a little bit on the dark side – it was night, what did you expect? Stopping for a moment to enjoy the high point of our run, we began our descent, which had a few icy places, requiring careful footing, eventually joining the Figure 8, before our final descent on another section of a segment of trail, well-covered by the snowmaking system. In the past, I have bemoaned the name of this last section of trail – it had been named after the former English Professor and head of the Breadloaf School of English, who was the cause of Middlebury College’s big #MeToo situation in the late 1980s. I was glad to learn that our Trustees had renamed it the White Trail, naming after a local female literary character (of whom I know nothing – I will have to find out). Crossing Forest Service 59, we had one last short climb up towards the parking lot. It wasn’t bad for a leisurely run, but I know from experience that it can be an agonizing approach to the finish line during nordic races.

To the Finish Line in the dark

This ended up being about a 4.5 mile run, and due to the good graces of Google Earth, which had the foresight to do their aerial photography during the daytime, I do have a GPS trace of the run. I think we will be doing this again sometime this winter!

Google Earth NOT in the dark

Altitude Profile

The Rikert Trail Name Game

Way back when, in the 80’s, when I began my career at the College and started skiing regularly at the College-owned Rikert Ski Touring center at Breadloaf, some “newer signs” were being mounted on the trees, indicating new trail names.  Apparently, until a few years previously, the trails had descriptive names, such as “Turkey Trot”, “Snow Snake” and “Figure 8”, and these, rather than their newfangled names were still commonly used, but the college trustees chose to rename these trails to honor famous Middlebury figures – some of which were truly connected to the Breadloaf campus, and some whose direct connection to the environs still seems a bit mysterious.  Nonetheless, most of the old names are now only vague memories of the old-timers, and the 30+ year old new names are used on the modern trail maps, as well as the signage out on the trails.  I thought it would be fun to ski all of the trails named after historical figures, and find out a little bit about each of them.

Battell

Leaving the open field, and entering the woods, the first trail most first-timers ski onto is the Battell Trail. It is only fitting that this well-loved trail is named after Joseph Battell, a scion of Middlebury who built the Breadloaf Campus as a mountain resort, and donated it to Middlebury College to create the Breadloaf Campus.  Full disclosure here – my endowed chair at the college is named after a few of his descendants, so I guess I too have benefited financially from his generosity!  I could write a whole post on Battell, but there are a lot more names coming.

Cook

After a short climb on the Battell Trail, I took the right turn onto the Cook Trail, a delightful little dipsy-doodle descent, complete with a mini-jump that has been part of the trail for as long as I have skied it. The Cook Trail is named after Reginald Cook, an English Professor at the college, and also director of the Breadloaf School of English, the summer Masters Degree program, in the mid-20th century.

Thomas

The next named trail, “Thomas” was one I had no idea on. Rebekah, a college archivist, did a little sleuthing for me, and suggested that the trail is named after John Thomas, the Middlebury College President from 1908-1921. He is also known for having founded the Breadloaf School in 1920, so it makes sense that he would be honored with a posthumous trail name!

After a short stretch rejoining the Battell trail, I finally got to a trail named after an actual skier! The Bower Trail, named after Middlebury Alum John Bower ’63, arguably the most famous Middlebury College Athlete. In addition to winning the NCAA Championship in cross-country skiing in 1961, he also was on the US Olympic Teams in 1964 (Innsbruck) and 1968 (Grenoble), and returned to coach the Middlebury Ski Team before leaving to direct the nordic program at the US ski team.

Freeman

My wandering path next brought me to the Freeman trail, named after Professor Stephen A Freeman, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 478 (OK maybe I stretched that a little, but he was over 100!).  Freeman is known for bringing the Middlebury language programs to international prominence, and establishing the schools abroad.  I don’t know of any special connection he may have had to the Breadloaf Campus, or the Rikert Ski area.  Does anyone else know?

Gilmore

I next did a short loop on the Gilmore trail, named for the adjacent Breadloaf Dormitory by the same name. I wasn’t able to connect this trail name to any Middlebury College name of prominence, but my college archivist connection Rebekah guesses that it was the name of a local landowner at some point. Looking on geneology confirmed that there were indeed Gilmores living in Ripton in the 19th century, but I couldn’t find much more, although I suspect that time spent looking over Ripton land records could confirm or deny this. I will also take a look around some of the local cemeteries this summer with my eyes open for the Gilmore name.   I did, however, find a blog post describing past alcohol-fueled literary debaucheries by some of the summer residents of Gilmore House!

Sheehan

 

The next named trail on my jaunt through the woods, is another one named after an actual skier, the Sheehan Trail, named after “Bobo” Sheehan, Middlebury Class of ’44, whose name is also attached to one of the chair lifts at the Snow Bowl. Sheehan, a born and bred Vermonter (from Newport), also the was the coach of the college ski team from 1947-1967, and was also the father to professional golfer Patty Sheehan. Although I suspect that he was more known for his prowess as an alpine skier, I think he deserves a nordic trail as well.

Frost

 

The next named trail, Frost, needs no introduction. He lived here, wrote here, and walked here. And yes, probably slept here as well.

Holland

Although I didn’t ski at all on the Holland Trail, I did pass by the sign for it. This was a tough one to figure out, but a friend who is a former Rikert Employee and Google Whiz (Thanks Nate!) came up with a likely candidate, Laurence Holland, a longtime Breadloaf professor and Chairman of the English Department at Johns Hopkins, who apparently met his demise while swimming unsuccessfully (That is a euphemism for “drowned”) in the Ripton Gorge in 1980.

Mandy

The next trail name as a little bit of a mystery as to its name, “Mandy”. I have heard two explanations as to its origin. The more reputable of the sources seems to think that the trail name is associated with a former Breadloaf employee whose last name was “Mann”, while another current employee thought she had heard it was named after someone’s dog. I am going to have to ask some old-timers about this one!

Craig’s Hill

After rejoining the Frost Trail, I took a sharp left turn, and came down from the upper reaches of the old racing trail, and descended the section known as “Craig’s Hill”. Chatting with a former Rikert employee, he seems to think that the Craig name was associated with a landowner in the area, past or present. Most people who ski at Rikert probably don’t give too much thought to land ownership, presuming that all the land is either Middlebury College property, or part of the national forest. Actually, the land is a patchwork of private, college and public property, and I know that expansion of the cross country skiing is limited by the needs of local property owners.

Upson

Still following the path of the old racing trail, I came to the Upson Trail, still commonly known by it’s old name “The Figure 8”. A few years ago, on this blog, I wrote a little bit about Mr. Upson, but self-plagiarizing:

W. H. Upson had been a prolific writer for the Saturday Evening Post, as well as other periodicals during the mid 20th century. Although he lived in quite a few parts of the country, including a stint at the Caterpillar Tractor Company in Illinois,when he eventually settled in the Middlebury area, he frequently attended the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, and taught creative writing on occasional at Middlebury College.

The house on RT 125 called “Earthworm Manor” is also his former home, and is still used as a Breadloaf School of English residence.

Tormondsen

The last descent down to the Breadloaf Barn, home of the Rikert Center, is down a trail now labelled as the Tormondsen Trail.  This trail, the current racing trail, is named after John Tormondsen ’82, a former All-American skier and generous donor to the college – and even younger than me!   I have presumed that he donated a lot of money to the college to support the Rikert area’s recent upgrades, as well as making the donations such that the common room of the building where I work, Bicentennial Hall, is also named after him.  Thanks!

On a more somber note, the trail maps for this final descent also still also bear the Cubeta name.  The now-deceased professor for whom this trail was named long ago, was a powerful English Literature professor, Provost of the College, and head of the Breadloaf School.  In the Middlebury College version of #metoo, about 30 years ago, enough men started talking to each other, and realized that they weren’t the only ones being sexually harassed by this professor.

Now, you might guess from the length of this posting, that this was an epic long ski tour.  Nothing could be further from the truth – I covered a lot of Middlebury College history in about 4 miles!

Google Earth of the ski tour

 

Beaver Ponds in Frost Country

Several years ago, I described a run where I crossed over a lot of the terrain commonly associated with the Robert Frost environment – the Frost Cabin, the Robert Frost trail, and the Breadloaf campus in Ripton.  This run begins at the Robert Frost (note the theme!) turnout and picnic area, and proceeds up the dirt road behind the Frost Cabin, known as the “Old Farm Road” on Rikert trail maps, before going deep into the forest behind Breadloaf. When I attempted to run this earlier this summer, I discovered that the blowdown from last December’s ice storm had rendered this stretch of trail impassable.  More recently, I had heard rumor that the trail had been cleared, as it is often groomed by the staff at the Rikert Ski Touring Area, and so I decided to revisit the route for the first time in over 5 years.

On a cool Saturday morning, I joined a friend from the Middlebury Trail Enthusiasts, noticing some of the first dustings of snow on the ground, signifying that just maybe winter is finally here?  We headed eagerly up the hill, past the cabin, and I could see that the rumor was indeed true, and that the trail had been cleared.

Freshly Cleared Trail

Freshly Cleared Trail

From this point, the route becomes more difficult to describe, as the trail system can get pretty complicated. The good news is that if you get off-route, you will hit a road sooner or later, and you would have to work pretty hard to not be somewhere in Ripton! We followed this trail until it forked by a sign labeled “Blue Bed House” on the right fork, but we took the left fork, and later when we came to a T in the trail, with a short steep downhills to the left, we chose the left again, until we got to the terminus of one of the Ripton dirt roads, known as “Wagon Wheel Road”, although there was no sign indicating this.  Taking an immediate right turn, past a forest service road gate, on the trail labeled as “Wagonwheel Road” on the Rikert map, passing by the first of several beaver ponds, before coming to a more primitive trail with a sign calling it “Kiwi”, where we took a right.  I knew from past experience that Kiwi is a trail which has been minimally maintained over the years, providing a more bushwhacking cross country ski experience than most of the Rikert trails, and this was apparent while running this short connector.  The big surprise however, was the observation that what I had remembered as a tiny stream crossing, had been enlarged significantly by beaver activity at some time in the last few years!  A series of small beaver dams were indeed crossable with wet feet but no wading, but I will be curious to see how well this freezes up for skiing this winter.

Surprise on Kiwi

Surprise on Kiwi

Crossing the stream, we soon came to the more developed Brown Gate Trail, where we took a left up a modest climb which brought us to Forest Service Road 59, aka Steam Mill Road, a well developed dirt road which will hopefully shortly be closed off for the pleasure of skiers and snowmobile enthusiasts.  From here, we took a right turn, heading gradually downhill for about a km, until we came to the left turn onto a trail clearly labelled as a snowmobile trail, past the small Kirby family graveyard, until we came to a short section where the snowmobile trail was separated from the Rikert Battell trail.  These side by side trails, one for skiers and one for motorized winter travelers were not were more clearly separated by the planting of a line of pine trees in the late 80’s, and now the trees are about 30 feet high!  I guess I have been here a long time.

Parallel Trails

Parallel Trails

The trail then veered to the right, and descended to Rt 125, where we crossed the road, and onto Brooks Rd, one of my longtime favorite trailheads, and when we got to the parking lot, we ran to the back of it and started uphill on the Widows Clearing trail, our last real climb of the day, until we reached the actual clearing. I discussed some of the story of the widow herself a few years ago, and it was the most commented on posting I have ever done – apparently a lot of people were curious as to the story of this place.  Not long after the Widows Clearing, we came to a T in the trail, where we went right on a trail called “The Crosswalk, a muddy descending trail which brought us after about a mile to the back of the well-loved Robert Frost Trail.  After crossing over the new (as in a few years old new) handicapped accessible bridge, we finished off the trail portion of the run with a few moments at the last beaver pond of the day, ringed with the first traces of the season’s ice.

From the Robert Frost Trail

From the Robert Frost Trail

Returning to Rt 125, we had a short run alongside the highway, returning to our cars, for a round trip run of about 8.5 miles.I usually post the Google Earth projection of these runs, but I apparently had a malfunction on this run, so I am going to refer readers to a previous posting, where I included this, as well as the altitude profile.

Middlebury women take a snowy ride up to Ripton, ca. 1940s

In this clip, members of the Women’s Forum of Middlebury College load up holiday gifts into a truck parked behind Forrest Hall, en route to the Meeting House in Ripton, VT. Upon their arrival in Ripton, local children run (and slide, trudge, and sled) to meet them. The Middlebury women, joined by a costumed Santa, distribute their holiday gifts.

Established in 1937, the Women’s Forum was itially organized to further interest in economic, political, and social issues of the day. In 1944 the group merged with the Student Action Assembly to focus on social and service work. This clip dates likely dates from the early to mid 1940’s.

Happy holidays from Special Collections & Archives.

The Oak Ridge Trail with Middlebury Trail Enthusiasts

As the summer draws to a close and the days get cooler, my runs tend to get longer and longer in anticipation of a few Fall marathons, or other longer races which depend on a full summer’s training. I have been wanting to knock off a big chunk of the Oak Ridge Trail for some time this summer, and I found some good running partners for this endeavor through a new Meetup, called “Middlebury Trail Enthusiasts“.  For those of you are not familiar with this group of runners and trail seekers, it began just this summer.  For the time being, most of the group runs have been in town, after work (5:45), leaving from the Marble Works on Tuesdays, and some Thursdays.  While I have been a regular participant on these after work runs, which usually proceed at a pace amenable to conversation,  this was the first time I had joined in one of the longer group runs.  So, at 8 am on a beautiful Saturday morning, I joined up with Heather, the group founder, and John, the organizer of the local race, the “Moosalamoo Ultra”  for a run up the ridge.  We started at the parking lot on Rt 125, between East Middlebury and Ripton, and headed up the trail.  One sign of good conversation is that you miss trail signs, so I guess we got off to a good start by missing a well marked right turn, where the Oak Ridge Trail veered off of the Old Town Road, an abandoned road which serves as the northern terminus of the nearly 20 mile long Oak Ridge Trail.  After about a quarter of a mile of running in increasingly higher grass, we realized our error, and backtracked to the incredibly obvious correct turn, and from this point we had no further routefinding difficulties!

I had done this section of trail once before, as a point to point run, after being dropped off at a significantly higher altitude, the turnoff for the Voter Brook Overlook on the Goshen-Ripton Road.  Running the same trail in the opposite direction added an additional 500 ft or so of climbing!  The trail angles up the north side of Mount Moosalamoo, rarely becoming steep, over the course of over 6 miles.  At one point, pretty high up, I grabbed a shot of my running partners as they attempted to escape me.

Oak Ridge Runners

Oak Ridge Runners

Shortly after this point, I parted company with my running friends, as they were looking for a longer run than I today – they continued along the ridge toward the now near Moosalamoo summit, and I chose to descend on the Moosalamoo Trail to the Moosalamoo Campground, and return to my car by country roads.  The descent was much easier than the ascent to this point – the Moosalamoo Trail gets much heavier foot travel than the longer Oak Ridge Trail.  Some recent local new articles had alluded to trail maintenance on this trails, to make them more accessible to mountain bikers as well, but other than a few cut up trees which had fallen over the trail, it looked like this plan was not fully underway yet!

I reached to Moosalamoo Campground, at around mile 9 in the run, and was surprised to see that, even on Labor Day weekend, this primitive campground only had two groups of campers staked out for the last holiday of summer.  At this point, I knew my return would be by road, but the Goshen-Ripton Road is about as quiet as a road can get- in my 4 miles or so on this road, returning to 125, I saw only 3 cars.  I also made mental notes of other trailheads to be explored in future postings, most notably the Wilkinson Trails across the road and to the west of the Widow’s Clearing parking lot.  In one sunny section, I also noted some of the last daisies of summer, clinging to the side of the road.

Last Daisies of Summer

Last Daisies of Summer

 

 

Rejoining Rt 125, I passed through Ripton, and realized that while I had passed through the village countless times by car, and by bicycle, the only time I had actually been on foot in the village was racing in the Ripton Ridge Run back in the 80s when it started and finished at the old Ripton School!  I also took a moment to enjoy the whimsy of the reproduction of the old sign for road tolls on this route, posted in the yard of the Chipman Inn.  Do you think they accepted Easy Pass?

No Easy Pass allowed

No Easy Pass allowed

The last mile of the run was the most unnerving – the run through the twisty turny section of 125 below Ripton. The shoulders here were less than ample, and I took care not to run on the side of the road on the inside of the many blind corners where cars tended to cut it a little close! I did indeed survive this short section without a scratch, to return to my car in time to get home for lunch. Overall, this was a pretty long run for me, covering almost 16 miles, with about 1500 ft of climbing on the trail sections.

Finally – it would be great to see some new faces at Middlebury Trail Enthusiast events – check it out!

Oak Ridge Ascent, Road Return

Oak Ridge Ascent, Road Return

Altitude Profile

Altitude Profile

New Year’s Resolutions

Saturday brought the long looked for break in the ski conditions thus far this year:  It finally started to warm up to the mid-teens, and there was enough (I hoped!) snow to do my first backcountry skiing of the year.  I knew the cover would be a little on the thin side (That always seems to be the case, somehow), so I headed to the higher elevations and a place where there was a high likelihood of being ample cover.  Once again, I found myself drawn to my favorite trailhead, the parking lot off of Brooks road, found on the south side of Rt 125, midway between Breadloaf and the Snow Bowl.  The Brooks Road itself, which climbs up the hillside to pretty high altitudes becomes part of the VAST (Vermont Association of Snow Travelers) trail system during the winter.  As such, it benefits from the regular grooming offered to regional snowmobilers, making the VAST trails also ideal for skiing deep into the mountains, even on skating skis, which demand a wide groomed path.  This excellent grooming makes high altitude forest roads, like the Brooks Road, some of the best places to ski early in the season before the first dumpings of snow come our way.

Setting off from the parking lot up the hillside, the late afternoon sun filtered through the branches arched over the road created the sense of trees covered with diamonds.  I was surprised by the degree to which some of these trees were still encrusted with ice from the storms of the previous week or two.

Glistening Wood

Glistening Wood

Continuing upward I also came to a section where a stand of beech trees s flanked the road, the the husks of beechnut shells littered the snow. Looking at them more carefully, they kind of looked like a bunch of bearded little Pac-men. What do you think?

I went into this ski with delusions of a long a glorious exploration of mountain trails, but my late start (It is scary how starting a ski tour at 2:30 in the afternoon is late this time of year!) and the realization that the trail coverage wasn’t quite as good as I hoped it was forced me to reconsider my plans when I reached a trail confluence about 2.5 miles up the mountainside.  To the right, I saw the much narrower trail which I knew would bring me to the Sugar Hill Reservoir, but looked rather bereft of snow.  Straight ahead, on the continuance of the Brooks Road, but on a section which is not regularly maintained for winter travel there was more snow, but since I was touring on skating skis, this section’s loose ungroomed snow felt like a bit of a slog when I very briefly considered continuing further.  And it was getting colder, fast!  So, at this point, I turned my heels and sped back down the mountainside to the warmth of my car.  Of course, in this fast snow it provided an opportunity to use my Garmin GPS and see what sort of speed I could generate on the two relatively steep descents.  On the first steeper drop-off I became so enamored of staring at my watch that I had my first crashandburn of the season!  Only slightly less worse for the wear, and covered in white I brought myself back up to speed and held a tuck without distraction for the second, and longer fast section of the descent, and after finishing discovered that I had gotten my speed up to 25 mph!  Not exactly olympic downhill speed, but not bad for inch-wide racing skis with detached heels!

All in all, while this was a shorter than planned ski outing, measuring in at slightly less than 5 miles and 500 ft of climb and descent, it was a great way to spend a small allotment of time on a cold but pleasant weekend day

pacman beechnut 2

Pac-Men!

 

Up to this point, the post has had little to do with the title of the post, so I guess it would be time to conclude with a resolution. These solo skis or runs in the mountains leave plenty of time for quiet, introspective thought.  Readers of this blog can probably tell that I enjoy setting myself up for personal physical challenges, and then meeting those challenges, but this resolution is a little different.  While the personal accomplishments will hopefully continue, what I really want this year is to make great new memories with those who I care most about.

Google Earth of Brooks Road ski

Google Earth of the Ski

 

 

Altitude Profile New Years

Altitude Profile

 

End of the Summer on the Long Trail

On this, the last weekend before the start of my school year, I  was looking for a good long run to complete the summer running season.  August had been a disappointing month for running, due to back spasms which slowed me for most of the nicest days of the summer, but after a month of recovery, I felt up to a longer run than I had done in a while.  With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to revisit a route which I last ran (and blogged) three years ago under very different conditions, and entitled it  “Stick Season above the Snow Line”  This loop involves considerable time on the Long Trail along the Worth Mountain ridge, and when I last checked it out I was running through a bit of snow, and racing to get back to my car before darkness.  While snow at the higher altitudes may not be that far off, this was most definitely a late summer run – the leaves  are still all there, and mostly green, at least to this somewhat colorblind runner.  Cooler temperatures also made for pleasant conditions on a cloudy September afternoon.

This loop is also of a length, and on terrain which most people would call “a hike”.  While I love a long hike in the mountains, one of the great pleasures of trailrunning is that it can get you out in the woods covering a lot of terrain when you don’t have time for the more leisurely pacing of a day hike.  So, before this run, I mowed the lawn, played the piano for a bit, read a few papers, and enjoyed a leisurely late lunch before setting off, and still got back in plenty of time for dinner.  Live life to the fullest!

Setting off from my favorite running trailhead, the Brooks Road Trailhead (also known as the Chatfield Trailhead), located off of a short dirt road a mile or so below the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, I started up the comfortable climb on the dirt road.  While this road is open to car traffic, I rarely see any motor vehicles on it.  The road climbs steeply for the first mile and a half, rising about 400-500 feet rather abruptly, but climbs more gently most of the rest of the way to its end, 3.7 miles up into the mountains.  When you get to the end of the road, follow the well worn path over the obvious footbridge over Sucker Brook, until you reach the Long Trail Spur trail on your left.  Take this trail, which also climbs pretty gradually with a lot of easy running terrain for another mile or so, until you reach the Sucker Brook Shelter, found in a saddle in the Green Mountains known as “Romance Gap”.  I met a small group of hikers, one of whom was a Long Trail through-hiker, and after exchanging pleasantries for a few minutes, headed up the hillside, and joined the Long Trail itself in a few minutes, turned left, and headed north towards Middlebury Gap.

As expected, the running on the Long Trail was more technical than the rest of the run.  As mountain ridge trails go, this was more runnable than most, with long sections of gradually climbing and descending dirt or mud path to run on.  In the rockier sections, the running becomes more akin to skipping, with your feet doing all kinds of crazy things in order to maintain a decent speed!  In sections where the climbing or descending got steeper, or potentially more slippery, I slowed to a fast hiking speed.  This section of the Long Trail is not known for its sweeping vistas, although there were a few limited views through the trees in places.  What I do love about this section are the more subtle sights one comes across when traipsing through the forest at around 3000 ft elevation.  I have always been particularly fond of the shelf fungus growing out of the side of some of the older hardwoods, and one which I came across looked so sturdy that it was begging for something to display. So, I set up a small rock cairn on it, which will no doubt puzzle or amuse subsequent passersby if they have the presence of mind to look beyond their own boots or running shoes.

A Curious Cairn

A Curious Cairn

 

 

Not long after this, I reached the high point of the run, the summit of Worth Mountain (~3200 ft) and began the gradual undulating descent to the top of the Snow Bowl. I was amused to meet a hiker, who seemed so happy to get a signal on his cell phone that he couldn’t resist the temptation to check his facebook page. To each his own…. The wooden walkways signaled my approach to the Snow Bowl, and shortly thereafter, I broke out into the amazing view towards the east from the top of the Bailey Falls lift.

Bailey Falls Vista

Bailey Falls Vista

From here, I scrambled down the steeper upper sections of the Voter Trail at the Snow Bowl, named after Old Professor Perley Voter, one of my predecessors in the Chemistry Department at the college. He must have been great, as there is also a building named after him, Voter Hall! As I reached the bottom, I passed a fellow middle-aged trail runner on his way up the mountain, and after the mandatory exchange of complaints about our aging bodies, headed across the parking lot, and descended on Rt 125 to return to my car just as the drizzling rain started to get just a little bit heavier.

According to my GPS, this was a 10.5 mile run, with an 1800 foot ascent, probably closer to 2000 feet with the undulations along the way. Not a bad way to end the summer. Now, time to prepare for Monday classes……And bring on the Fall!

epic run

Google Earth of the Run

 

Altitude Profile

Altitude Profile