mountains

… otherwise known as Vermont!

My husband and I took a long weekend road trip to Vermont to visit friends at their cabin. From NYC, the drive took us about six hours to our final destination of Stowe; of course my insistence that we stop along the way for photos and the occasional coffee did extend the trip some, but isn’t that what a road trip is all about?

Heading north through New York State way we traveled through the Adirondack Mountain Range. The Adirondacks are a worthy trip in itself. Thousands of streams and lakes, (including famous Lake Placid and Lake George) offer gorgeous scenery, kayak and canoe waterways, tons of hiking trails and camping sites. The scenery here reminded me of my home state of Washington — just with much shorter mountains.

After four hours of arm-out-the-window singing along to our usual road trip tunes (Bob Dylan, Modest Mouse and Neil Diamond) we opted to spend the night in Rutland, Vermont.

Rutland, like many towns in Vermont is small, but large enough to have a Main Street complete with a street fair, organic shops and great restaurants to choose from. Again I was reminded of my roots seeing the laid back, “granola” lifestyle so common to Seattle i.e.: VW bus driving–Birkenstock sporting–fleece wearing–organic food selling — ski and mountain bike bumming… and I loved it! While parts of Jersey and NY also have their “natural” sections that remind us of home at times — but Rutland was the first place we’ve visited since moving to the East Coast where I really felt like a Seattle-ite could move here and fit right in.

In Rutland we ate at the trendy yet homey Table 24. Thinking about their skillet cornbread and macaroni & cheese is a regular past time of mine when I am hungry.
The ingredients are fresh and the staff are mainly college students that may argue that the skiing brought them there more than the local college. After dinner we walked the street fair, listened to the live music and window shopped the local stores.

Rutland, VT street fair

The next day we got an early start for Stowe and made only a few short stops to take some pics and one stop at the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory Headquarters in Waterbury. Free samples!

Diana at Ben & Jerry’s

Stowe is a popular ski town but in the summer it is a hiking/mountain biking town. Tourism is clearly the industry here, as it is in most ski areas.

While in Stowe we checked out the Summer events around town that run through mid-October including the line-up the Stowe Mountain Resort. You can take a 2,300′ ride on the Alpine Slide, get high with Bungee Trampolines or climb some rock walls. Stowe has a Gondola as well that you can ride to the highest peak in the State.

Gondola

We took advantage of the warm weather (low humidity) and hiked some of the more popular trails in the Smuggler’s Notch area. Guided tours are available for every level of hiker, but we opted to go off on our own carefully choosing the hikes that would best fit our ability (I like danger )

We hiked to not very crowded scenic high points on Morse Mountain that offered panoramic views of the Champlain Valley below. We managed to also make it up Sterling Mountain–a four hour trek to the highest trout pond in the state.

The rest of the “hiking” we did was mainly around the town. Art galleries populate the roads of Stowe (one of my favorites was the Stephen Huneck Gallery showing his very popular dog drawings and sculptures) and of course the mountain touristy shops that I never seem to get tired of browsing through.

photo courtesy of www.dogmt.com

Diana at the covered bridge in town

On our last morning we stopped at the Dutch Pancake House for a very filling and delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, Dutch style (crepe like with all ingredients baked in, replicas of what you would find in Holland) and strong coffee. According to this site, the NY Times reviewed this as “The World’s Most Decadent Breakfast” and I’d say that review is pretty accurate.

dutch pancake

Overall, for a four day weekend, Stowe and it’s stopping points along the way was a great road trip from New York City. When I head back in the Winter I’ll be sure to update you on the happenings and you can also trust me to try out the Dutch Pancake House again, simply for the sake of research, of course.

This third Zion post (read one & two) brings the trip to a close, at least the documentation of it on this website; the memories of course will live on.

I mean really, three high-school buddies meet up and road trip for a long weekend? How could that not be a great time! I am so thankful for Rachel and Jean, for the laughs and hot tamales, for the wacky pictures and wackier people in some of the establishments we frequented, for the bonding time we had in that amazing scenery, and for Melissa; another dear friend who decided to get married in this gorgeous spot!

Below are the remaining pictures I’d like to share.

The Emerald Pools Hike
There are three pools reachable on this Hike: Upper, Middle & Lower.–each reached by a different trail that included waterfalls both large and small, narrow paths and sheer drop-offs.

Jean & Diana across the canyon at the Upper Emerald Pool–about to be hit by the waterfall spray.

the view when looking up

Diana at the middle pool

one of the stealth waterfalls

gorgeous views at every turn

After the Emerald Pools, we hiked through an area that was more desert than anywhere we had seen so far. Hardly any trees and not as many high peaks. The riverbeds were mostly dry (we were warned about flash floods though) and we were convinced that episodes of Star Trek or Land of the Lost were filmed in the exact spots we were standing!
side note: after getting home and looking up some of the areas we were in, I found that this area of Utah as well as the Eastern part of the state was used for many episodes in various Star Trek seasons.

Rachel’s glamour shot

Diana getting a little running in on the side of the mountain

Made it!

catching some rays

A nearby elk farm

and, the beautiful bride

Twice, in as many months, I have heard the title of this post uttered and have now adopted it as an essential descriptive phrase to use when beholding beauty that nearly hurts my eyes.

I first heard it in the British Virgin Islands when the transparently blue/green water and the scores of rainbow fish got to be just too beautiful to see over and over again (yeah, I am really not complaining here…) and one of my travel partners on that trip longed to see “the grayness of Newark” (well, she said that, but of course no one longs to see Newark)… anyway… I uttered the same phrase again while in Zion.

I’d like to think I have visited epic locales– oceans, cities & mountains known for their beauty– but I had not yet seen anything like Zion National Park.
Let me tell you now, any pictures you see, even the professional ones do not capture, in the slightest, what you will witness in person.

The Park, that welcomes three million visitors a year, is divided into 4 sections–all with gorgeous views, scenic drives and hikes for every level of mountaineer.

1.Zion Canyon containing: the Emerald Pools (that Jean, Rachel and I hiked), Angels Landing (the steepest hike in the entire park and upon your completion, if you have the energy to to make it back down, can buy a t-shirt proclaiming your victory ascent and The Narrows which has been voted by National Geographic as in the top 10 of their best 100 hikes in the Nation.

2.Kolob Canyons known for the famous Kolob Arch that is shown in many Zion pamphlets.

picture courtesy of First Light Photographs

3.Kolob Terrace: with the well known, yet challenging Subway hike. Parts of this hike travel through naturally made mountain tunnels and in some parts require partial or depending on the time of year (like last week while I was in Zion) total submersion and swimming into cold water.

photo courtesy of zionnationalpark.com

4. Highway 9 that includes the Tunnel– a spectacular scenic drive that leads to the South side of the Park.

Zion is a massive area and my time there was for exploring the park, but also for my friend’s wedding (which was IN the park and was GORGEOUS) which did not allow me excess time to get all of the hikes in I had wanted. Next time I go back, the Subway hike is first on my list.

Now that you know a little bit about Zion, and my original purpose of the trip… let me display some of my favorite pictures and accompanying stories.

Hiking around various areas of the Canyon we found ourselves in dry river beds full of … sand? Yep. Some of the softest sand to ever have passed in between my toes! The mountain rocks are all Sandstone (some of the largest amount anywhere in the World actually) and the Virgin River, over time, has eroded parts down into, well, sand.

We came across a family of Mountain goats while hiking and I didn’t zoom on this shot–we were this close.

This was the lodge we stayed at, just outside of the Park. The views were incredible and a free shuttle ran every 10 minutes to take you either into town or into the Park (of course we had our stealth Hybrid (see part 1). Us 3 girls shared a giant room with 2 queen beds, a queen sleeper sofa a nearly full kitchen and a deck overlooking the heated pool.

On one of our hikes…

Scenery shot! Too much beauty!!!!

I swear– it was not easy to climb up here even though it looks like it’d be pretty easy…

This concludes part II of the Zion trip… but there is more to come… and take a read of part I if you haven’t yet.