Snake Mountain

Editors note: this week’s entry comes from a location slightly outside of Burlington,35ish minutes, but I learned about it while hiking in Burlington so that sort of counts.

Vermont sometimes reminds me of a recent college graduate. It doesn’t know exactly what it wants.

Recent grads, on one hand, had a really good time in school and they shared those experiences with almost everyone they came into contact with at the time. On the other hand, the grads are kinda ready to move on; they really do not want to forget their collegiate exploits but they are also not about share them with everyone either. For the most part, they hold onto these stories but don’t share the experiences with people who don’t ALREADY know the stories.

Enter Vermont.

On one hand, here is a state that DEPENDS on tourism and opening itself up to strangers; it prides itself on its hikeablitly and great skiing (and, of course, maple syrup) and welcomes people of all walks of life. On the other hand, when you move here you find that it is a place with an extremely hard culture to break into and that there are a lot of things that only locals know about and share amongst each other. However, once you do break in, you’re in for good. Gain the trust, and you’re accepted. New graduates share a similar feeling with the outside world.

There are no signs for snake mountain and though it wasn’t too hard to find directions on Google, the mountain certainly isn’t advertised.

From BTV, it’s easy to access, IF you know where you are going. You take a side road off 7 which dead-ends into the appropriately named, Mountain Road.

Spooky

While sitting on at the stop sign, a small, old empty house looms across the street. Off to the side a small, green rectangular sign, no larger than the faceplate of a VCR, simply reads “parking” with an arrow pointing left.

Parking for what??? You only know if you know.

Hanging a left, we noticed a cramped dirt parking lot smushed between the road and the tree line. There was no signage and I had a to ask a fellow hiker if I was even in the right place.

Okay, I take that back, apparently there used to be signage.

Undaunted by the seemingly un-visitor-friendliness of the place, my fiancé, friend and I began our walk. Despite the ground being muddy, the trail was nicely groomed and ascetically pleasing. Less than 10 minutes in, we were finally acknowledged and welcomed by the trail.

Apparently, we were now accepted.

We happily resumed hiking, confident that we were in the right place for the first time.

Snake mountain is a beautiful trail, ranging in difficulty from easy to medium. Throughout our hike, we probably saw 20 kids, from infant to teen, on the trail who seemed to be navigating the trail just fine and having a great time in the process.

The trail winds and climbs slowly, is narrow in some spots and broad in others. It took us about an hour and one water break to reach the summit and experience this… (words don’t do justice, so I am going to shut up and let you look at a few pictures.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coolest part of the summit was this picture:

That tiny parking lot? That’s the one we parked in. Even though the hike wasn’t that hard, this invoked memories of Shelburne and it’s parking lot nonsense and curse words again came out of my mouth.

We stayed on the top the mountain for close to half hour, soaking in the view. Had it been warmer, I could have stayed for hours. Also, I was hungry for this:

Special thanks to my fiance for this tasty treat...

so we decided to get moving.

On my way down the mountain, the girls spent a lot of time together and I sort of lagged behind, thinking about the day’s observation. It was during this time that I came up with the idea of Vermont being like a recent graduate, not knowing what it wants.

 

 

I realize now that the analogy isn’t entirely accurate for either. What both want is to have something to share with everyone AND something to share with just a select few.

They know what they want, the best of both worlds.

Funny thing though: I’m from Ohio. So, while in this case I am glad to be considered part of that select few that is in the know, I’m going to share my experience with everyone.

Until next time,

A Stranger Observing Burlington, Vermont – Elek