Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador Frozen fog has transformed the hillside evergreens into a tiered arrangement of powdered confectionaries. We are halfway up the slope of Camel’s Hump, Vermont’s third highest and most iconic mountain. We have arrived at this point via the Burrows Trail, ascending from the town of Huntington, a mere half hour outside …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador The road ahead narrows as it climbs the mountain pass and twists its way out of sight. Behind and below a wide gate slammed shut has closed the road off to winter traffic, and the dead end is bolstered by a deep drift of snow plowed up against it. We have …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador In the light of an unobstructed sun the subzero morning has burned away into a vibrant sky of pure and cloudless indigo. We are at Stratton Mountain in Southern Vermont for Tubbs Snowshoes’ annual Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer Snowshoes Series, and on this day the spectrum of pink arrayed …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador From out of the deep blue water beyond a growing sheet of lake ice protrudes a crag of rock. Situated between the jutting peninsula of Shelburne Point and evergreen-crested Juniper Island, the formation of slate stone forms but a blip upon the surface of Lake Champlain. It is crusted with frozen …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador The morning sun refracts through a sky sharp and blue as topaz gemstones, and a cold western wind hits with a hand of broken glass that marks this day, the last of January. I am snowshoeing with my friend Saeed, a computer programmer who moved to the United States from Saudi …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador From its place six feet up a bare white pine a chromatic diamond marks a turn in the trail. It is the day after Christmas, and in the decline that naturally follows a holiday we are taking a meandering snowshoe walk and blazing a path through the back of my parents’ …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador A sweeping arc of unbroken white stretches before me in a level plain that disappears around a long bend. An artfully sculpted on-ramp of gradual incline rises behind me. Above me hangs a floodlight, dark as a forgotten thought. I am in a panorama sketched by a human hand, with all …
Rich, Day Hiking Ambassador The wooded hillsides plunge down to an idyllic stream of quiet water and ice. This is Podunk Brook, running through the back of my parents’ property. It is the day after Thanksgiving, and we are in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, moving through woods laden with newly fallen snow. Clinging with …
Where do you live? South Burlington, Vermont Top 3 things we should know about you? 1. I’m obsessed with all things food. 2. I’m an aspiring writer trapped in a retail world. 3. I believe that new experience is the reason for life. Favorite aspect of snowshoeing? A winter mountaintop. Favorite drink while snowshoeing? Water …
Authored By Rich K., Day Hiking Ambassador An impenetrable sky of pallid blue has collapsed upon the mountaintop, and the snow has rendered rock indistinct from cloud. This is a snapshot of December 2013 captured at the summit of Hunger Mountain. The nearby town of Waterbury, Vermont is lost in the storm, three thousand feet …