We bucked all our Christmas traditions this year. With none of our adult children at home and still reeling from the election, there didn’t seem any point in decorating a tree, baking cookies, or preparing a Christmas Day feast. So we didn’t.
We hiked Stratton Mountain instead.
The weather favored our outdoor ambitions: snow-cover, sunshine, and twenty degrees, perfect for a snowshoe ascent of Vermont’s eighth tallest mountain and the one closest to where I live.
Stratton is only thirty miles from home. I can drive to the trailhead in under an hour. In the summer, I can usually reach the summit in an hour and a half. It takes longer on snowshoes.
The trailhead parking is usually packed in all seasons, but on Christmas Day, ours was the only car in the lot. And the hike was unprecedented for solitude: we didn’t see another hiker all day. More unusual for this time of year was the total absence of snow machines. No sound, smell or sight of them. It was wonderfully tranquil.
We weren’t the first to ascend through the snow; we followed tracks by someone in boots and someone in snowshoes. We also saw moose tracks, both old impressions frozen in ice and some from earlier that day. We didn’t see any moose, but then we weren’t particularly quiet: our snowshoes crunched on the old snow.
I love how snowshoeing always warms me right up. For the ascent, I pulled off my hat and mittens and unzipped my vest. I carried a daypack full of extra layers and my Christmas dinner, which I ate at the top: PB&J on homemade whole wheat with homegrown, homemade, raspberry jam. Hands down, this is my favorite fare for a day hike, and it didn’t disappoint.
We needed the fuel. Hiking uphill is hard work; snowshoeing uphill is even harder.
Our three and a half mile climb took just over two hours. When we reached the summit, we were buffeted by cold wind. The windows of the fire tower were plastered with snow, so I climbed just high enough to snap some photos of the fantastic view. Doing so required I take off my mittens, so it was literally a “point and shoot” photo op. Even so, my fingers instantly froze.
We didn’t linger.
Nevertheless, I didn’t once wish I was home, following the Christmas traditions. I didn’t miss the meal planning, shopping, baking, decorating, gift-wrapping, or house full of guests. We’ve done that for thirty-odd years. And we hosted and feasted at Thanksgiving, which was only a few weeks before. It was nice to have a year off. I was happy to be outside of the usual celebrations, back on the trail, soaking up the winter sun.
Just a few hundred feet down the trail and into the woods and we’d more than warmed up: we were sweltering again. We stopped to shed our extra clothes.
“This would have been a better place to picnic,” Tim said.
I agreed. It would have been perfect. But while we bucked our usual Christmas traditions, we remained constant to our hiking tradition of “Lunch at the Summit.”
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What a great thing to do!
It was fantastic! And today’s storm promises great snow for a New Year’s Eve overnight adventure in the backcountry! Yippee!!
What a lovely experience you shared together outside of the box.
Great pics. You all looked happy. (Including the dog). 😉
The combination of sunshine and snow always makes me smile. I’m looking forward to the big storm coming our way today. We’ve already had more snow this winter than we had all of last year. It’s nice to have this bright spot despite the grim socio-political landscape. And all the water to help the earth recover from the summer’s drought.
Perfect! I love it…we are always pretty low key. I don’t send Xmas cards or give tons of gifts. My youngest son cut down a sweet little tree from the yard. We keep it simple and it makes for a less stressful holiday. The winter hike sounds wonderful!
Sounds lovely! The snow makes me so hopeful – a great way to start the New Year with a clean page. Best to you and yours.~D.
Love how you did something completely different. I live in Chester only part time. When I’m not there, I long to be. Especially this holiday season in Rochester, NY – my more permanent home – the crass commercialism really got to me. Vermont always soothes my soul and makes me hopeful that life can be so much more than what so many people experience. Your posts just confirm that feeling of something so real and immediate about the place
There’s so much I love about living in Vermont, where I’ve been a full-time resident for over half my life, and a regular visitor since 1964. And I think it is exactly for the reason you articulate so well: There is something so real and immediate about Vermont: the lack of population density, the weather, the tradition of independence and self-government, and a great deal of natural beauty. ~Thanks for reading and responding, Best wishes for 2017.