Stepping out of the woods, I giggled to myself as I felt the mountain embrace me. The baby’s-breath reached up to my armpits, tickling me as I walked across the trail, following the narrow but well trodden path. But not right now. At the end of June, nature still overwhelms the path, no one from the resort having been here yet with a weed whacker. You can barely see the path through the field of little white flowers, almost like it has snowed on Lower Skye Lark.
It’s beautiful and I feel like Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music,” surrounded by so much nature that I am almost a part of it. I mean, I’m so in it, that I might as well be. If I fell and tripped, I know that Nature would just absorb me into the mountain forever. Not a bad way to go, really.
But I am here to reconnect with my beautiful mountain, having been away since that miraculous day on June 1 skiing. I cannot believe it, actually, that I have been away so long. Actually, that’s not true. I was here two weeks ago, but on the Ramshead side, so it feels so very different to be wandering up the front.
Ah, Trail E. When I was working at the bike shop all those years ago, I would tell the guests that E stood for Easy. And I guess it still does, if you compare it to direct ascent up trail A or the long trudge up the workload of Trail C. Trail E is Easy, in that it gives you moments of beauty where you forget for a moment that you’ll be finishing off with a foot to knee hike up Escapade. Huh, maybe the E stands for Escapade.
Anyway, I love the wandering of this trail. In and out of the trees, popping out onto Skye Lark then Bittersweet then Skyelark again. Finally, you top out on the top of Preston’s Pitch of Superstar and can look down the Killington Road until what seems like eternity. Then back through the woods again over to Ovation, where you have to work through a tunnel of trees that used to be shorter than my waist, but are now just tall enough to create a canopy tunnel over to Anarchy and Julio.
This is where you forget that you’re traversing a double black diamond tree trail — or at least have moments. Then you turn a corner and see the pink lettering of the Trail E sign what seems like several hundred vertical feet above you. Oh right, I’m not traversing on a bike trail, I’m hiking up this damn mountain. I can feel the sweat pouring down the sides of my face and down my back. Why did I do this again?
I can see The Light at the end of the tunnel and I feel lighter, happier, knowing that the end of this climb is coming. Until I remember that it’s time for the Escapade ascent. You pop out of the woods onto one of the most fun natural snow trail bump runs at Killington — except that you have nowhere to go but up. Your calves start screaming at you, but it’s June so my quads are still ski pumped up. It’s never as long as I think but always longer than I feel. But you just push down on your knee with your hand, wiling your body upward and onward.
I’ve done this so many times, my body knows where the trail abs and flows, as I cross over bike trail No. 2 (I don’t know what it’s called now) I debate giving up and making the left turn because it’s still wicked early and the gondola isn’t running yet. But I cannot surrender. Trail E is Easy, remember? I keep reminding myself as I push further up the trail. A few more steps up the rocky part, and I make it to the work road and turn around to bask in the glory that is the view. Somehow the view is always better on the ascent.
Checking my watch, I think about how soon I have to be back to work and how much further I can wander. My goal is never the summit, although sometimes I end up there. I just want to spend some time walking down the South Ridge, looking out at the plushness of the green mountains. I want to soak it all in, a little stroll down Launchpad and then over to Great Eastern with a finish on the beautiful Snowshed Crossover. At least that’s where I ended up going today. Who knows where my mountain journey will take me next time. But I cannot wait to find out.
Merisa Sherman is a long time Killington resident, town lister, Development Review Board member, local realtor and Coach PomPom. [email protected].
