Friday afternoon, Rick, Jon, and I loaded the truck, and headed off to Stowe, Vermont on a rainy afternoon at the Sun and Ski Inn to do some hot tubbing.

After reaching our Inn, we grabbed some beers, enjoyed soaking in the hot tub and swimming in the pool. We planned our hiking weekend to coincide with Winter Rendezvous, an annual gay ski week held in Stowe for many years.

After a fun afternoon of being in the water, we met Carlos, Ed and Ken in the bar at The Shed, with most of us choosing to have the best burger in Stowe. We then made our way to the Commodores Inn bar, Winter Rendezvous Central, as we engaged in talking about all kinds of topics. However, we had to turn in early due to the hike on Saturday, and left before most of the folks returned from that night’s entertainment.

Saturday morning found the skies to be clear, the sun shining and temperatures around 30. A large group met us at the trailhead for the 10AM start and included Rick, Markus, Stephane, Christel, Mike C., Charley, Ed, Carlos, Andrew, Colin, Jon and myself. We started off on the snow covered Rte. 108 that is closed in winter. This road continues up to Smuggler’s Notch. We didn’t go up that far. After about .25 mile, we left the road and began to hike on the Long Trail. We left the tourists below.

The trail was broken out and snowshoes were not needed. We readjusted layers about a ¼ mile out and basically just used a synthetic shirt for the hike up to Taft Lodge. The Long Trail up to Mt. Mansfield is a real nice trail with moderate grades for good portions of the trail. The trail became steeper as we hiked higher.

We were thankful once we reached Taft Lodge. We grabbed lunch and gazed at the view below us and the rock outcrop called the Chin above us. The Chin is the actual summit of Mt. Mansfield at 4,393 feet. Mt. Mansfield is the highest peak in Vermont. After lunch we turned off into the Profanity Trail for our final summit push. We began to encounter deep snow and had to put on snowshoes. At this point I think I heard profanities come out of the mouths of Rick, Ed, Carlos, Andrew and Colin who ended up turning around. 

The Profanity Trail was impossible to follow so we followed ski tracks to the ridge. We could see the ridge above so we made sure to stay to the left side of the Chin. We found ourselves climbing a steep, icy snow slope made easier with the built-in crampons beneath our snowshoes. A few snowboarders had just started riding off the summit. Once we reached the summit ridge the wind was blowing around 20 mph so we put on extra layers and a shell. We found ourselves in a frozen, arctic world. Within 5 minutes we were on the summit.

We then did a magnificent 1.4 mile above treeline hike with views all around. West we saw an inspiring view of Mt. Whiteface and snow-capped Mt. Marcy across Lake Champlain; South we saw an awesome view of Camel’s Hump and other 4,000 footers on the Long Trail; and East we saw a memorable view of the snow-capped Presidentials in New Hampshire.

Most of the crew had switched to crampons but Jon and I kept our snowshoes on. The rock outcroppings covered with snow and ice became beautiful works of art. We were careful with our footing but really enjoyed this section of the trip. This summit ridge is really crowded in summer so it was great to have it all to ourselves.  

At one point on the traverse we looked down and saw the Stowe Ski Area gondola with folks skiing down the mountain. We took a break at the other end of our traverse by the toll road summit station beneath many radio and cell towers. After the break we took the Toll Road to the ski trails and then butt surfed Nosedive, a black diamont ski trail. A five-minute walk led us back to our cars.

Most of the folks from the hike returned to the Sun and Ski for some beers, wine, snacks and hot tubbing. We were all famished and had dinner at the Rusty Nail. We then split our different ways with some folks returning to the Commodores Inn to meet old/new friends while others drove back home. 

It was great to have put together a group of 12 people to climb the highest summit in Vermont in winter. The camaraderie, laughter and new friendships forged made it all worthwhile.