Throughout my 20s, 30s and into my 40s, I fancied myself a passable nordic ski racer. I, and a group of friends calling ourselves “Team Ross” (named in honor of long-time Middlebury College ski team coach and former olympian, Patty Ross) made the rounds to many local races, including the Breadloaf Citizens Race, the Stowe Derby (my favorite for many years!), and the now defunct American Ski Marathon at Blueberry Hill, which was part of a National Ski Marathon Championship Series formerly known as “The Great American Ski Chase“. In addition to the usual technique and conditioning skills, this sport required a certain level of mastery in the art of ski waxing. The difference between a great race and a miserable frustrating day was often the choice of ski wax, and the care with which it was applied, especially in races where the “classic” technique was required. For many years, I found great pleasure in this art. On days when I chose to ski in the classic style, I would head up to the Rikert Ski Touring Center, bringing along my full kit of waxes, and once I checked out the temperature and snow conditions (wet, or dry? Fresh, old, or rock hard?) I would go into the waxing room at Rikert, spending anywhere from 5 min to a half hour waxing up before heading out. And, of course, I secretly scorned the beginners and their noisy, slow, waxless fishscale skis! As the years went by, and the time that I had to dedicate to careful waxing diminished (cough cough..kids) I found that my waxing time diminished to the point where I would “nail” the wax about 25% of the time, get it “good enough to have fun but not quite right” about 50% of the time, and totally “miss the wax” about 25% of the time, leading to either spinning my wheels, or slogging along with glue under my skis. Fast forward to the current covid era – while my passion for waxing has been fading for years, this year the social distancing requirements prohibit spending time indoors in the old Rikert waxing rooms, so I was forced to guess the wax from my home down in the valley. And, I kept guessing poorly. Add to this the fact that my decades old gear, once state of the art, was now badly worn out and ancient technology. So, I swallowed my pride, and drove up to Burlington to buy a pair of (shudder) cheap waxless fishscale skis! I had heard that all outdoor gear, including cross country ski gear was in short supply this year, due to a surge in outdoor activity and upset supply lines, and was fortunate to be able to purchase the last pair of skis and boots in my size in the store. I have to admit, skiing on them has been a pleasure! They are a little slow at times, but realistically, the aging version of me is as well. And, I will never ever ever have to wax my skis again! My new “waxless wonders” reside in my car for the winter, ever ready for a spur-of-the-moment opportunity to use them. My blog posting today describes one route I took on them.

Another covid era complication, has been the need to quarantine after travel out of state. My life required a trip to Boston earlier in the week, and although I eschewed all unnecessary human contact, I returned to Vermont willing to continue human isolation until I am cleared by time or a negative test. That said, I was not going to let all this great snow go to waste! The main entrance at Rikert was clearly off limits, as it is busy with people at the entrance, and in the vicinity of the lodge and inner trails. An alternative place to begin my skiing was up the short road from Rt 125 at the parking lot for the Robert Frost Cabin. While this parking lot, and the immediate vicinity is part of the Rikert trail network, a few hundred yards bring one onto national forest, and these outer trails are infrequently skied. For the duration of this ski, I only saw three other skiers who were easily avoided.

Heading straight up the hill past the old farmhouse and the Frost Cabin, I found myself immediately in a forest of Red Pines, their lower branches still heavy with snow.

While the snow was still pretty fresh, it had been skied out just enough, and my waxless wonders were performing marvelously. At about 3/4 of a mile, the trail forked, and I took the right turn continuing uphill towards the Blue Bed House. I have written on this house in the past – when I first started skiing back here in the 80’s it was still a discernable, partially standing home, but the eponymous blue bed was nowhere to be seen. When I was last here, chronicled 11 years ago in the summer, the house was reduced to a pile of rubble, but still recognizable as a former structure. It’s current status? Frankly, if I hadn’t known it was once there, I probably couldn’t have discerned it’s location, especially with all the fresh snow. Nature is quickly reclaiming this spot!

Continuing on this trail, at the next trail junction, I took a sharp left on the trail whose sign indicated that it was heading towards the Blue Bed House meadow – probably the remnants of the old hill farm associated with the house. This open area is one of my favorite places in this part of the woods, and its former use as a farm site can also be identified by one of the surest signs of its former habitation – the old apple trees planted many generations ago.

Going straight at the bottom of this meadow (the left turn here is where I went on my return), and after a short steep descent, I came down to the terminus of the Wagon Wheel Road, one of the back roads in Ripton, where the road had been plowed, but not sanded, and was fine for skiing. This location was probably the site of what was probably a pretty rowdy dance hall from the early 1950s called – you guessed it – “The Wagon Wheel”. I did a little looking into the history of this former den of sin for the residents of Ripton in a previous post. Curiously, uphill, not far from here, I once found the rim of an old wagon wheel laying down on the ground, and I made the point of leaning it against a tree, but have never found it again since then.

At this point, I turned right up the plowed, but skiable dirt road beyond the locked gate. There is clearly someone who lives up this road during the winter months, but fortunately they leave this section open to foot, ski, and snowshoe travelers during the winter. After a short ascent on this section, the trail system takes a well- labeled right turn onto a true trail, with the continued road ascent at this point well-labeled with No Trespassing signs. I knew from past experiences that there were options to loop back to the Blue Bed House from this point, and that was my original plan. Passing by a beaver pond meadow, I came to the next trail junction. Most of the tracks continued straight, heading towards Forest Service 59, but I had had enough climbing for the day, so I chose to take the right turn onto the old trail called “Kiwi”.

Kiwi had long been one of the most primitive trails in the Rikert trail network, and is still marked on contemporary Rikert maps. Decades ago, while not maintained, it was easily followed, and skiing in the winter I could guess that it was braided with tiny streams which were easily covered by snow and ice in the winter. More recent runs back here were a little bit disorienting, and I soon realized that beaver activity, and erosion had created a real stream here, requiring wet feet. Since this trail was still shown on some Rikert maps, I was hoping that it could be crossed more readily in the winter, or that perhaps the Rikert staff had added a primitive bridge. However, as I followed the tracks to the edge of the stream, I looked across and saw nobody had passed this crossing since the last storm, for obvious reasons! So, I turned around, and retraced my tracks to the site of the old Wagon Wheel site.

On my return, I chose a shorter route, following the signs pointing towards the Frost Cabin, and soon found myself in the red pine forest, enjoying a gentle descent back to my car. The sun, low in the sky, made for a lovely view by the cabin!

The total length of this semi-loop ski was about 5 miles, with a modest 530 ft of climbing and descent. And the best part? I won’t have to scrape and clean the nasty old wax from my ski bases!

Postscript: Heading out of another ski, on the next day, I noticed that road access to the Robert Frost Cabin has been closed by Middlebury College. This is understandable, as the possibility of accessing “in bounds” Rikert Trails by those not holding a seasons pass (I did purchase the pass) was possible here. Also, probably more importantly, current Covid rules require that the touring center maintain records of all daily visits, should contact tracing be required.

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 geneologysites 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

Long before I was an avid runner, my favorite endurance sport for many years was cross-country skiing. I picked up the sport as a grad student at Dartmouth in the early 1980’s and my first race was as the anchor leg (having only skied maybe 10 times in my life) on the “DFL“ relay team at the old Hanover Relay race, that was won by a team anchored by ski legend Bill Koch.  Even though my cross-country ski racing abilities have waned over the last decade, I have always loved the sport, and looked forward to the opportunity to ski every winter, especially at the nearby Rikert Ski Touring area.  Nonetheless, the winter two years ago was so miserable, that I kept waiting for “the big storm” to hit, and it never did, so suddenly I realized that I had missed an entire season.  So, of course, I was even more ready and eager to ski last winter, and as my friends know, I injured my shoulder last December, which kept me away from the sport I loved for another year.  So, on Saturday, I pulled out my skate skis from the basement for the first time in close to 3 years, and headed up to the Rikert area to finally go for a ski.  I had never gone so long without skiing, and I wondered how easy it would be – in other words, I was going to test out if skiing, like bike riding, is something you never lose once you learn it.

After skiing the “Old Rikert” for many years, I still can’t get over the “New Rikert”, even though it has been upgraded for at least a half dozen years.  Of course, with better skiing, comes a higher price, but it is still a recreational bargain in my mind.  I was amused, however, to see that they now charge to get your “Pooch” a seasons pass!  Setting out for my first loops, through the open fields and into the old beginner area originally called “Turkey Trot”, but known to most as the Battell loops, I felt a little shaky at first, but soon got into an easy, albeit not entirely fluid rhythm.  I also wondered now my incompletely recovered shoulder would fare.  Fortunately, while it ached some, it didn’t seem to get worse or feel debilitating, especially since my ski racing aspirations are currently on hold.  This loop has one short, not particularly steep hill – a hill that I knew I used to be able to tuck down pretty easily, but the uneven early season conditions (although still pretty good!) combined with my concern over falling on my untested shoulder forced me to descend more conservatively, and with a little more wobble than I would have liked.

After some messing around in the beginner terrain, I headed up onto the hillier train in the rest of the area, I saw that one of my favorite outer loops, the Frost trail was open, so I headed up the hill, heading in that direction.  My curiosity was piqued by a series of small rectangular yellow squares on trees, with the words “Burgin Lodge” written on them.  I had no idea what they were referring to.

Mysterious Trail Markers

As I neared the higher elevations of this trail, I had the feeling that there might have been some re-routing of the trail, as the climb seemed a little longer, and with a few more twists and turns than I remembered.  I also noticed a large stone cairn, that hadn’t been there a few years ago, almost as if it was there to mark something.

Mysterious Snowy Cairn

At least some of my questions were answered shortly thereafter, as I came to a beautiful cabin in the woods, decorated with prayer flags, and identified as the Burgin Lodge! I noticed it, as I was skiing past, and trying to stop, I took my only fall of the day, and landed on my elbow, jarring my bad shoulder. I breathed a sigh of relief, when I realized that I hadn’t re-injured it – and this was comforting, in that it gave me the confidence to ski a little bit more aggressively. I did discover the one aspect of cross country skiing that I had seemed to have forgotten – how to get back on my feet! Glad that nobody was watching, I took a while to get upright again, with my humiliation only internal. Getting up, and dusting myself off, I tried to look inside, and found the windows covered and the doors locked, but I later learned that the lodge had been there for a little over a year, and was built in memory of a Middlebury alum who met an untimely death, and was a lover of the outdoors. So, his family had the lodge built in his memory, and is available for use by members of the college community.

Burgin Lodge

Just as I was getting ready to leave the Lodge, and begin the descent back to the touring center, I saw a relatively new sight on the trails – a fat tire cyclist! Although Rikert has been renting out fat tire bikes for a few years, I had never seen a rider this deep into the trail system. Although I noticed he had left some ruts which might catch a skier, I am more than happy to share the trails with enthusiasts using other means of propulsion. See? It is kind of like riding a bike.

Fat Tire (not Fat Tired) Cyclist

Continuing my ski, I did the immediate descent on the Frost Trail – the steepest sustained descent at Rikert, and a great chance to revisit my snowplowing, I returned to the touring center, for a 10Km “first ski” of the season. It may take a little while to get my rhythm back, but it sure felt good, especially as a light snow storm started, covering me with snow. Walking back to the car, I admired the icicles on the side of the building, and was reminded by the beauty of the place, although I would not stand underneath them! It’s good to be back.

Breadloaf Barn Icicles

Google Earth of the run

Altitude Profile

Finally, on Saturday, the howling cold weather which has kept me indoors far more than I would like gave us a reprieve.  Saturday’s mid-teen temperatures, which under normal circumstances would still be a bit on the cold side felt absolutely balmy, so I went for a ski in the morning at the Snow Bowl.  Some errands I had to do limited me to a half day, but by mid-afternoon I had completed them, so I decided to turn my ski day into the best of both worlds, and loaded my cross-country skis into the back of my Beetle, and headed out for round 2 of the day’s fun.  I set off for the Ripton-Goshen Road, not really sure where exactly I would end up skiing as the afternoon’s snow started, and then increased in intensity.  I was not in the mood to break trail, so I was looking for places where others had skied, snowshoed, or snowmobiled, but was looking for something a little less well groomed than the terrain offered by our local ski touring centers.

My first thought was to ski down the forest service road leading east  to the Moosalamoo Campground and Voter Brook Overlook, but the ski track I found petered out in about a half mile, turning into a snowshoe track set by hikers intent on climbing Mt Moosalamoo, which would have required more time than I had at my disposal.  So, I returned to my car, and looked for another entry into the forest.  Heading south another mile or two, I came to a plowed turn off for the forest service road which heads up to one of my favorite backcountry sites, the Sugar Hill Reservoir.  I didn’t make note of how exactly this is marked, but it is on your left as you head south, and is about a mile north of the Blueberry Hill Inn.  I headed up this road, which is used by the cars of fishermen who use it to access the reservoir during the summer.  I knew from past explorations that this road is heavily traveled and maintained for snowmobile travel in the winter.  I also knew that this point of entry would bring me to the lesser-used northernmost nordic trails associated with the Blueberry Hill Inn’s Nordic Center.  The ravages of Hurricane Irene took out a few bridges on this part of the trail network, and the funds have not yet been raised to revive them (although a funding campaign has been launched!), so I suspected that these trails would be skier-packed, but not groomed.  While recent transplants to the area may not know this, older skiers (like me!) will probably remember that through much of the 70’s through the early 90’s (If anyone knows the full span of this, feel free to comment), Blueberry Hill sponsored the American Ski Marathon, which was part of the national ski marathon series known as the Great American Ski Chase.  As a result this race, which galvanized the support of almost all the inhabitants of tiny Goshen, VT, brought in some of the finest ski racers from all over the country, and even a few random local college professors.  My ski today covered a small segment of this race course.

I headed up the hill towards the reservoir, not really remembering how far I had to go.  I realized that this would be a pretty short ski if this was my sole destination, as I reached the height of land above the reservoir only after 3/4 of a mile, and hit the reservoir shores after only a mile.  The snow was starting to fall pretty heavily at this point, but there in front of me was the snow-covered lake, and I realized that I had, there in front of me, an opportunity to write my name, or at least my initials, in the snow on a scale which might be visible from space, or at least by our spy satellites.  Perhaps a “JB” a quarter mile high, with a superscript afterwards to show off my science side? While I considered this, I also realized that if I was going to put the effort in to do this, I wanted a picture, and the heavy snow and increasingly late afternoon lighting precluded meaningful photography of any such attempts to defile the scenery.

I also noticed the sign, describing this reservoir as the geographic high point of the hydroelectric project culminating at Lake Dunmore. This sign, by the way, is usually at eye level. We have a lot of snow!

Sign at Sugar Hill Reservoir

I began my descent, but wanted to extend my ski, even as the light was fading, so I took a left turn about halfway back, heading into the Blueberry Hill trails on what is known as the Sucker Brook Trail, which had been packed by the skis of a few others who had preceded me. This section of skiing, continued with a sharp right turn and short climb on the Stewart Trail (none of these names are marked, by the way – I just know them from past experiences – they are labelled by signs bearing numbers, relevant to the ski touring area’s map) took me into denser hardwood forest. Big old trees make lots of loud cracking sounds when it is cold outside, and by this point the temperature was dropping. Eventually I reached a point where I realized that I would soon be descending into the touring center, and I didn’t want to have to do the extra climb to extricate myself, probably in the dark, so I turned around and headed back to my car. En route, I passed a sign with the number 7 written on it. Lucky? Not really – this was a 7 Km marker from another of Blueberry Hill’s races, the summer Goshen Gallop trail run.

7 km sign

Reaching the forest service road, I took a left turn and descended to my now snow-covered Beetle. This ended up as a pretty easy and short ski tour. The short climb to the reservoir is particularly nice for less experienced skiers. I ended up putting in about 4 miles on this, with no more than 200 ft of climbing at any point. I can also see that we are going to have some impressive spring skiing this year!

Google Earth of the Ski

Finally, mid-week, we had a break in the polar-bearworthy weather with a warm day in the 20’s, so I chose to take a mid-week extended lunch break, and headed up to the Rikert Ski Touring area for the first time in longer than I care to admit.  I had noticed the existence of a new trail meandering through the open meadows to the south of Rt 125, and west of the ski touring center (that’s on your right, and before Rikert for the directionally challenged) and had made a mental note that this was something to be explored as soon as possible!  Arriving at Breadloaf, I strapped on my skating skis, did a quick warmup around the field, took my skis off, and crossed over the road to the fields directly across from the ski touring area.

I have not skied these open fields much in recent years – I seem to have spent a lot of time here in the late 80’s, when I and my “Team Ross” friends seemed to have to spend a lot of time racking up (inflated) kilometer counts trying to outdo each other in our training over the course of a few winters where there just wasn’t much snow, and the trail at the far side of these fields tended to be the last place that the snow held during the all-too-frequent meltdowns which cursed those winters.  Nonetheless, I noticed from the map in the touring center, that this trail was  the means to get to the new trail, shown on the map as the “Brandy Brook Trail.”  The well-groomed start of the Brandy Brook Trail started in the southwest corner of the meadow, and immediately began an easy descent through a forested area for a short distance, before going over a bridge (over the Brandy Brook itself perhaps?) before entering one of the open meadows alongside Rt 125.  From this point on, the trail meandered through the fields for about a kilometer, before skirting the Galvin Cemetery, final resting place of “The Widow on the Hill“, and crossing the road at the white house bearing the curious name “Earthworm Manor“.

I was curious to find out the origins of this odd name, and obtaining this information proved easier than expected, courtesy of Google.  While his primary residence was at 24 Chipman Park in Middlebury, Earthworm Manor was the former second home of one W. H. Upson (where have I seen that name before?), who 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.   Presumably he was a colleague of our better known poet, Robert Frost?  So why was his Ripton summer home called “Earthworm Manor”?  One of Upson’s most well known fictional characters was an everyman known as Alexander Botts, whose employer was the Earthworm Tractor Company- probably building off the author’s early career at Caterpillar.

Back to skiing!  After crossing the road, my ski took me around behind the Earthworm Manor, and up what is probably an old logging road behind the house.  As I ascended, I noted a fair number of trails diverging from the groomed ski touring trails, and made a note to myself that there just might be some fun trails here for further exploration by ski or on foot.  After a short climb, the Brandy Brook Trail terminated at one of the older Rikert trails, and I then realized where I had heard the aforementioned author’s name before – this was the Upson trail, usually known by it’s nickname, “The Figure 8”.  From this point on, I tried to make the widest loop I could on trails groomed for skating, so I bore left, eventually coming to the Frost Trail, which for many years was the outer limit of the in bounds Rikert terrain, and descending via Holland Trail to the impeccably groomed Tormondsen Racing Trail.  The snowmaking on this trail can make for some rather unnatural snow buildup on the nearby trees, and noticing this tree, I couldn’t help but think it bore a striking resemblance to a rather long and bulbous nose.  Jimmy Durante anyone?

Durante Tree

Completing my descent, I crossed over the FS 59 road, and came across something I had never noticed before; The small summer swimming pond, which now also served as the water source for the snowmaking, had a small fountain at its center. I suspect that it is not used, except to help keep the pond from freezing over during the coldest portions of the winter (like the last week or so!), and I rarely ski on those sorts of howling cold days.

On Thin Ice

I could have called it a day at this point, but I also knew of another new trail which I wanted to check out. So to get to that, I began my second, shorter loop at the Battell trail. I side excursion down to the less traveled Cook Trail, led me through some dense pine forest. While, the uniformly spaced and sized monoculture red pines were undoubtedly placed there by humans in the not too distant past, they made for a lovely effect with the fresh snow.

Pine Forest

Ascending the modest hill on the Battell Trail, I came to the short straightaway at the top where the ski trail is separated from a little-used snowmobile trail by a hedge of 30 ft pines. After reminiscing that I have been skiing here so long that I can remember when those trees were planted as saplings, I crossed over onto the snowmobile trail, which brought me past the Kirby Burial Ground, and onto the upper reaches of FS 59.  From here, I scooted up the Forest Service Road, which is maintained for ski skating just as well as the touring center trails, courtesy of the snowmobile groomer, until I reached the Brown Gate, where I returned via the Upper Gilmore Trail (a great new trail which I first sampled last year!), until I reached the Gilmore House, where I explored the second new trail of the day, the Crooked Brook trail, which begins behind the Gilmore House.  This trail, while probably only 1K long, is a blast to ski, as it descends through a series of fun, tight turns before traversing across, eventually joining the other well established trails near the Myhre Cabin.  While writing up this posting, I discovered that a short Facebook posting showing the construction of this trail was published last summer.  Thanks to Mike and his staff for building this great little trail!

One final descent brought me back to the touring center to complete what ended up being about a 9.5 mile ski.  Once again, my aging Garmin GPS had a bad day, so I won’t be able to post the usual tech stuff from that.  I got the darn thing back in 2007, so maybe it is time for a new one?  Anyone want to throw some money in a Kickstarter account to help defray the costs of a new one?

More often than not, the transition from autumn running to winter cross-country skiing is a long, frustrating period of time, derided as “stick season”.  This year, however, a warmer than usual November, followed by more generous than usual early season snow, seems to have shortened the season in which it is “too cold and rainy to run, too warm or snowless to ski” to a few short weeks.  That said, the seemingly inevitable Christmas rains have dramatically reduced the snow cover in Vermont, and when I checked the conditions at Rikert, and they were reporting 3 km of trail open for skiing, this did not bode well for holiday skiing in Addison County.  So, I decided to look elsewhere, and followed the usual rules of thumb, which are 1:  Go north and 2: Go high.  So, I decided to make the slightly longer drive to the Trapp’s cross country ski touring center, high on a hillside above Stowe Vermont.

As most Vermonters know, the Trapp Family Lodge was established by the one and only Maria von Trapp of “Sound of Music” fame shortly after she and the rest of the family emigrated to the United States. They first established a modest ski lodge up on a hillside with views which reminded them of the views in their native Tyrol, and then pretty much introduced nordic skiing to the northeast with the opening of their touring center in 1968.  Meanwhile, the original lodge burned down in 1980, sending poor old Maria out into the cold in her nightgown. The much tonier modern lodge, which I have driven by many times but never actually entered, was built a few years later.  The Von Trapp family also has apparently flourished, as witnessed by the fact that there seem to be as many Von Trapps as there are Smiths in the northern Vermont phone books.

I skied at the Trapp’s Nordic Center a few times a year in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but as my commitment to nordic ski racing faded, corresponding to increased family priorities, I had not skied here in many years, perhaps as many as 20 years, so I was looking forward to this excuse to return.  The Rikert ski touring area, while more convenient, has one major drawback – it is lacking in long climbs and descents.  It isn’t flat mind you – the Tormondson Race Trail packs in about 400 ft of climbing and descent in each 5 km lap, but due to the limits of the topology, breaks these climbs and descents into bite size pieces.  Trapp’s on the other hand, is literally on the side of a mountain, and has trails which take advantage of this – it is full of long, grinding climbs, followed by generous, multi-kilometer descents which which make you want to whoop with joy as you gather speed and maneuver through corners.

I was not disappointed in the amount of terrain under conditions which have virtually wiped out most of the cross country skiing in the state – they had 25 km of trails open, and with my Rikert season’s pass, I was able to get one day of free skiing there this year.  Experienced skiers have known of the challenges of skiing Trapp’s, but due to the fame of the Von Trapp family, as well as the rather plush orientation of the tourism industry in Stowe, most of the skiers there are tourists who might ski once every ten years.  I was also somewhat astounded by the many languages I heard on the lodge – Spanish, French, British English, Russian, German, and other languages which I didn’t recognize were within my earshot.  They must be doing some rather brilliant marketing to get people who live much closer to real mountains like the Alps, to come to Vermont to ski!

The only consistently flat trail at Trapp’s is the main access trail which traverses the side of the mountain for a little over a mile.  Given the less experienced nature of most of their clientele, this trail is almost comically crowded with beginners, wearing their downhill skiing attire with ski technique that could be described with the terms “wobble”. “careen”, and “sprawl”. But hey- we all have to start somewhere – I hope that these folks try this great sport again! This section of trail also had numerous benches for skiers to sit on, and plenty of trail signs to ensure the clientele that they were not yet lost in the wilderness.  Curiously, they also had a sign with a Robert Frost poem (saying nothing about roads less traveled) inscribed, perhaps taking inspiration from our own local Robert Frost Trail?   More experienced skiers inevitably strive to survive the long climb to “The Cabin”, perched at higher altitudes and  achieved after a pretty steady 4 km of climbing.  When I last visited this cabin, it had a small snack bar, providing free water, and selling hot chocolate, and hot soup to the proud skiers who managed to get up there.  This time around, while the cabin was still backwoods rustic, it had a more complete menu than I remembered, also offering grilled sandwiches and baked goods.  I wasn’t there to eat however, I was there to ski, and this cabin, at the highest altitude for skiers also provided the beginning of what I came there for – the screaming descents!

Trapp’s Ski Cabin

After a short water break, I continued past the cabin on the Haul Road, a long fast descent down the back side of the touring area.  My past memories of this descent also included memories of great views of Mt Mansfield, but given how many years it has been since I last skied there, the previous open views along the trail were now mostly obscured by young birch forest.  That was OK, as my downhill technique is not what it once was, so paying attention to my skiing rather than the views was probably a good idea.  Of course, what goes down must come back up again, so after this great descent, I climbed up a different trail, known as “Bobcat”, circling back up to the cabin for another descent.  For my second descent, I explored a trail which was new to my experience, apparently put in 5 years ago, known as “Chris’s Run”.  This trail is probably the most spectacular descent in a groomed cross country ski trail in Vermont – it had pretty consistent pitch, with just enough steep sections to keep you literally on your toes, and zigzagged its way down the mountainside for what was probably 3 km, with excellent views through the hardwood forest.  After this descent, I worked my way back to the beginner bumperpeople trail, with a side trip behind the Lodge, to complete my longest ski of the season and one of my best ski workouts in a few years.

Mountain Views from Trapp’s

All in all, this made for a 15 km ski with about 1400 vertical feet of climbing, and more importantly, descent. Yah!

Google Earth of Trapp’s

For many years, I fancied myself a passable cross-country ski racer.  Despite an inauspicious start, finishing dead last as the anchor leg of the 1981 Hanover Relays, a race in which the anchor leg of the winning team went by the name of “Bill Koch” (yup – THAT Bill Koch, and I was attired in a fuzzy blue sweater, blue jeans, and bamboo poles), I gradually improved over the years until the demands of parenthood and other interests diminished my ski training time to the point where racing was pretty futile.  At my peak in the late 80’s, I, and a handful of my friends made it our goal to ski 1000 km in a season, and with the mileage from three ski marathons in a month on top of a shorter race almost every weekend, several of us managed to reach our goal.  One of the symptoms of this particular version of OCD was an obsession with ski waxes.  I would wax at least one pair of skis every night (and yes, I had several pairs, almost always the latest and best) based on the next day’s weather prediction.  The bane of the ski-waxer’s existence was the particularly goopy wax for warm or icy weather known as “klister“.  While the stuff really does work, putting it on one’s skis is a real pain, and part of the reason why for many years now I have almost always broken out my skating skis, which do not require kick wax, on warm springlike days.

So, on an unseasonably warm and sunny Sunday morning, I found myself with my classic skis at the Rikert Ski Touring Center, and of course, my plastic bags full of every wax under the sun.  Realizing, to my dismay, that it would indeed be a “klister day” I dug into my bag and pulled out a tube of silver klister wax which was probably older than most of the skiers out on that particular day.  The best way to apply this sticky gooey mess is to squeeze a thick line from the toothpaste tube it comes in onto the kick zone of my skis, and then spread the wax by running my thumbs across the base.  Then the fun really starts – as all this wax on one’s thumbs can’t be washed off ( I had forgotten how insoluble it is in water!), so I ended up shmearing streaks of silver goop on the sinks of the Rikert men’s room.  Of course, it would not do to leave this for their staff to clean up, so I eventually settled on wiping it up with a generous stack of paper towels.  The scene was actually reminiscent of the challenges of cleaning up the “pink goo” from the Dr Seuss book “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back“.

Skis all prepared, I set off up the hill, not really dead set on where exactly I was going.  Taking the freshly groomed tracks on Holland to Frost, I came to the end of the Brown Gate trail, and realized that the section connecting this point and the trail to Blue Bed House was one I had never been on before.  This two or three year old section of trail seems to be replacing the old connector from Holland, which seemed to be badly flooded in recent years due to beaver activity.  This narrow trail, which wove through the hardwood forest was made more challenging by the darn klister – the conditions were an odd mix of powder, ice, and frozen granular snow, so I found myself intermittently flying, and lurching to a near halt when my skis chose to grab.  Nonetheless, I plowed on, connecting to the Blue Bed house trail, and bearing downhill, to Wagon Wheel Rd.

The last time I had passed this way, the Wagon Wheel Rd. had been plowed, making for less satisfying skiing, but to my pleasant surprise, no plows had been this way since the last generous snow storm.  So, I took a right turn at the blue gate, planning on following the old Middle Branch trail, which I knew would eventually loop back to the touring center.  A few hundred yards later, I came to a surprise which forced me to re-evaluate this plan.  While the Middle Branch trail, to the right, looked neatly tracked, I noticed a new, less manicured section, labelled as a segment of the Catamount Trail, bearing left.  To the right – the comfortable trail I knew well.  To the left, a trail whose known destination was…..Canada.  Once again, I chose the road less travelled, and that made all the difference.

The Road Less Taken

This segment of trail was totally new to me, and from the geography, I knew it would eventually lead me to Steam Mill Road (aka FS 59) but I had no idea how long or far away this would be. So, I just glided through the woods, gradually climbing,the klister working well in the rapidly softening snow, and enjoying being the only person for a few miles. And at this point, it hit me – I was reconnecting with a sport that has been shortchanged for quite a few years.  After all those years of skiing an enormous amount in my younger adulthood, finding time to keep up with the sport has proven elusive more recently.  I found myself suddenly reminiscing and reconnecting with a sport which at one point in my life was my favorite sports activity.  This introspection aside, this is a very pretty section of trail, mostly through hardwood forest.  The trail is at its most scenic in one segment where it hugs the rim of a rather dramatic broad gorge, with the Middle Branch flowing a few hundred feet below.

Winter Woods

After a while, however, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into, as I was somewhat directionally disoriented (albeit not “lost” – the trail was well marked) until I came upon a group of skiers coming down the trail from the opposite direction. One of this party was a friend I had not crossed paths with in a few years, Andy, and as we stopped and conversed, I learned that he was responsible for the layout of the trail we were on! Pressing him for information on his other trailblazing activities, he offered to share some of his favorites in exchange for some help with trail maintenance. Sounds like a good deal to me! I also learned that I was a short distance from Steam Mill Road, which is closed to vehicular traffic in the winter, and maintained for snowmobile use. I joined this road at the broad clearing which in the summer is near to the popular trailhead to Breadloaf Mountain. I found it curious that there was a large sign, standing in the middle of this field proclaiming “WILDLIFE CLEARING”. Since the only tracks I saw in the snow were of human origin, I guess the sign was right – the wildife was cleared!

At this point, I was still a few miles from the Rikert Center, but the return was easy, following the road in the tracks of numerous previous snowmobilers, and getting onto Upper Gilmore near the Brown Gate, and following the obvious downhills back to the touring center.

Google Earth of ski

On the technical side, this ended up being a slightly more than 9 mile route, with about 700 feet of altitude difference between the low and high points.  I am also looking forward to checking this out on foot this summer as well.  The soul of this day however, was how invigorating it felt to just get lost in something that I really enjoyed.  So, take the time to reconnect with something ( or someone I guess!) you love.

Altitude Profile

I spent much of the morning on Sunday, potentially the best ski day in years, at a family gathering in Massachusetts, but as this get-together wound down, I realized that I just might be able to squeeze in some skiing in at the end of the day, if I could get home early enough in the afternoon.  Fortunately, the other members of my family accompanying me on this trip fell asleep shortly after departing Massachusetts, so I took this opportunity to drive a little faster than I might normally.  While I missed the banter of my family on this several hour-long trip, they did manage to sleep through my driving back to Middlebury at a pace which might have made them a little bit nervous, and indeed, when they awoke a half hour from home, I was implored to continue at or around the speed limit.  Nonetheless, I pulled into my driveway with just enough time to take advantage of the sunny day and spectacular conditions, and headed up to Breadloaf!

In my most critical views of the Rikert area, my only complaint over the years has been that while there is a lot of good skiing here, it seems that a lot of it is in small, tight loops, never getting far from the touring center itself.  When snow is good, I frequently hit Forest Service 59 in order to get deeper into the forest.  When I arrived at the touring center however, I noticed some new trails on the map, some of which were rarely groomed, and another which until this year never existed.  In particular, I was intrigued by the new trail, labelled “Upper Gilmore”, which ran along the eastern periphery of touring area, paralleling, but never quite contacting FS 59, which serves as a snowmobile trail on the VAST network.

I started this particular ski, warming up on the loops on and around the Battell trail, before turning onto Freeman to access the old Gilmore trail.  Previously, this trail has served primarily as a connector to the forest service road and the Norske Trail, but as I cruised by Gilmore House (one of the more out of the way dorms at the summer Wordloaf Conference) and neared the road above, I saw the anticipated new trail veering to my left, and headed up it.  This is a great new addition to the trail network – it went on for close to a mile, and in sections had the feel of a bobsled run before connecting with the better known Brown Gate trail.  Kudos to Mike and his work crew for putting in this great trail last summer!

Skier Shadow on Upper Gilmore

After enjoying the easy downhill shuss on the Brown Gate Trail, I was treated to a second surprise. The primitive trail leading towards the pile of rubble known as “The Blue Bed House” was also groomed and maintained!  Don’t expect much of a house, let alone a blue bed – the eponymous bed probably hasn’t been there for 30 years, and I think the last wall of the house fell 10-15 years ago!  Jokes about the condition of the “house” aside, this is a pretty section of forest, which was skied somewhat in the past, but was not made part of the Breadloaf touring area due to property line issues with one of the private land owners. I am glad to see that this has been worked out!  The trail then snaked its way into a beautiful open meadow, offering another easy descent and more great winter vistas.  Like most abandoned meadows in Vermont, this one had a few ancient apple trees left behind long after all other farming here had ceased.   I know of some local hard cider brewers who are interested in heritage apple varieties – perhaps they should explore here!  I also couldn’t resist the temptation to make my initials in the otherwise virgin snow, and squared them for good luck – after all I AM a science nerd!

Blue Bed House Meadow

Following the signage to get back to Rikert in time for closing, I enjoyed another particularly pretty stretch of skiing through the tall narrow pine trees that line the trail for a short distance right above the Robert Frost Cabin, and after a loop through these fields, I headed back to the touring center more out of respect to the workers who undoubtedly bad put in a long day, and probably wanted to go home, rather than wait for the stragglers (like me) who didn’t want to quit!

Tunnel Through the Trees

All in all, this made for a slightly longer than 8 mile loop, and brought me much farther into the forest than most skiers at Rikert usually get. There will be no more “not enough long loops” complaints from me, at least as long as the great snow holds up.

Google Earth Projection of the Ski Tour

Altitude Profile

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

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

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 the Ski

Altitude Profile

I find myself in the Mad River Valley fairly frequently, and while technically, it is not part of Addison County, it is less than an hour away from Middlebury by car, and has it’s own outstanding opportunities for running and cross country skiing.  One of the two nordic skiing establishments in “The Valley” is known as Ole’s, and is named after a fellow named, not surprisingly, Ole, who developed the area for skiing many years ago before returning to his native Norway.  This rather expansive ski touring area has a very different feel to it than the nearby Rikert and Blueberry Hill touring centers.  While the nearby ski areas have the wilderness feel befitting areas on or near national forest, Ole’s is entirely on land which serves other uses in the summer months, and weaves its way in and out of active farmland, private homes, and is actually based on a summer landing strip, aka “Warren International Airport”, used primarily to serve gliders in the summer months.  I am not going to bother to give detailed instructions on how to find it, since everyone has either a GPS or a cell phone with Google Maps, but it is up on a plateau to the east of the Mad River, and just below the ridge of the Roxbury Mts.

This is a ski center with some definite selling points.  It is very “beginner friendly”, since the shorter trails are on a landing strip, and are very flat.  When I ski there over the Christmas holidays, there always seem to be quite a few families there giving nordic skiing their first try!  Also, since most of the terrain is in open farm fields during the summer, Ole’s can open up, and provide nice skiing when there is very little natural snow, unlike wilder areas which need more snow to cover over rocks, stumps, bear dens, and other natural hazards.  The shortcoming of Ole’s is that it doesn’t have any substantial climbs and descents (at least not on the trails I routinely ski).  Nonetheless, most of their terrain could be aptly described as “rolling”, so athletic skiers can get a good workout, albeit without lung wrenching climbs or long adrenaline-inducing descents.

Touring Center

I started out at the touring center headquarters, which was festooned with the requisite US and Canadian flags, a Norwegian flag in honor of it’s founder, and a German flag.  I had to ask what the significance of the German flag was, and apparently they were displaying it because “it looks good!”.  The biggest climb in the area involved the trail immediately to the west, to the top of the modest knoll called “Warren Pinnacle” a 5 km loop which provided for a few nice views back in the direction of the touring center fields.  This trail looped in and out of meadows and young birch glades, typical of farmland in the process of reverting to its natural state.  Returning to the center after this loop, I headed south to the short 2 km trail which is one of my favorites there, a  loop called “Rock n Roll” which makes a series of short loops through active farmland, as evidenced by the corn stalk stubs from the fall’s harvest, which probably provides great wild turkey habitat when there is less snow on the ground.  This trail probably has an altitude difference of only 30 ft between its high and low points, but no flat sections, and lots of short fast turns which make for interesting skiing.

Trail Loop in Farm fields

After this stretch, I returned to the airstrip field to the north, and after pausing for a moment to enjoy the panorama of the Green Mt ridge to the west , veered to the east, until I hit the East Warren Road, making on last long loop to the north, before returning to the touring center by a short wooded trail.

Panorama

The entire loop ended up at about 14 km, and while it is hard to figure out the combined vertical climb for lots of small climbs rather than a few big climbs, it was a scenic ski with enough climbing to make for a good workout.

Google Earth of the entire route