Weekend Climb

Summer is a special time in New England.  It's just a 3 months in a year where we don't have to wear jackets.  It's not like in Asia where we have the sun all year long and ignore it's presence.  Around here, it is precious commodity and people tend to bask in it for as long as they can.  They take most vacations and half days off during the summer.

Also, unlike Asia, we don't go to the mall during summer to get air-conditioning (AC) to cool ourselves off.  The idea is to go out and have do something.  Vermont is one of the outdoors-ier type of places mostly because of the beautiful scenery all year long.  Every season is special, and there's no better time to be in Vermont than during the summer.  That's also the time when I don't go out of state unless I'm going to the beach.

After the much revered Friday night dinner, what better way to burn it off than by going hiking.  We've been in Vermont for quite a while but we've never hiked before because mainly of the fear of having to bring a kid.  Now she's a little bigger, so we chose to go up the nearest and easiest place to climb -- Mount Philo.

climbing up the trail

The climb up was relatively easy as advertised, as it was just a mile.  If you follow the trail (and that is a big if), things would not be complicated.  But when we reached a huge rock a quarter of the way up, we apparently went to the wrong direction and climbed through a scary non-trail path with a 4yo and 6yo.  That is not how you do it people!!  A few yards up the seemingly wrong path, we noticed our mistake and had to struggle with the steep, mossy, slippery path we created going up.  Going through up and down that very short path in itself was a already a workout.  When we went through the real path, everything looked smooth sailing from there.

squeamish on frogs for sure

I didn't think hiking could be that fun and challenging.  It gives you a work out, but it keeps your body and mind alert at the same time.  Surely beats mindlessly and aimlessly running on a treadmill :-) If you're not squeamish about worms, bugs and frogs (guilty on this one!!), it's a perfect weekend past time.

The kids were a little whiny though and were dragging their feet a little bit.  I guess it didn't help that my daughter had early morning swimming lessons that day.  She was also complaining that she twisted her ankle (which I think she was using as an excuse since she doesn't looked as bothered about it as she should be).  

kids were perched

View from the summit

When we reached the summit, it was an awesome site.  It boasts of the view of the Adirondack mountains across the lake and the fields right below the mountain.  Our appreciation of Vermont was once again heightened.  It was a picture of serenity where you could stay and hang out if you just want to contemplate.  

 We definitely enjoyed the climb and will count it among our favorite places in Vermont.